


One Word That Brings Peace

by hyperbolic_jester



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clexa, F/F, doctor mechanic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-08-22 20:58:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16605332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyperbolic_jester/pseuds/hyperbolic_jester
Summary: The Ark was failing.  In an act of desperation, the council sends 14 year old Clarke Griffin and 100 juvenile delinquents down to the irradiated surface to the Raven Rock Mountain Complex to determine if the Earth was survivable.  Both the ground and Raven Rock were not what they seemed.  Through great hardship, Clarke adapts, but is constantly faced with choices that erode her humanity.  While she fights desperately for her soul, the Ark turns itself into a crude dropship, depositing Alpha station on the western coast of what used to be Mexico.  Abby and Marcus bring their people on a cross-country exodus to find a home for their people, settling amongst a strange new people known as the Kongeda.  Now that they have finally found home, a new threat on the horizon whispers of a darkness deeper than anything any of them could imagine.  Skaikru and Kongeda  must find a way to work together to bring it down before it completely consumes them.





	1. Prologue: Clarke

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU that takes place an extra 200 years after the original, for a total of 300 years post-apocalypse. I just can’t buy that these totally different cultures would spring up so quickly after the near total destruction of humanity. Additionally, they landed in the Ice Nation, instead of Trikru lands near a different bunker in the northern Appalachians, along the Pennsylvania/Maryland border. They are a lot younger when the dropship was launched, Clarke being 14, and everyone else’s ages are scaled down accordingly. The landing and the resulting war with the grounders occur almost identically as in the show. They are eventually integrated as a sept, or subfamily of the Ice Nation. The war with the Mountain occurs three years later, once they’ve had a chance to get established, learn grounder ways, and garner some political capital. They were never able to establish communications with the Ark, as Raven Rock thoroughly jammed their signals.

Earth: 2349

Prologue: Clarke

Clarke came to a decisive conclusion at an inopportune time: eight hundred and eighteen feet below or two hundred and forty miles above, she would much rather be on the ground.  She wiped the fresh blood off of her bone handled utility knife against her pale blue woolen pant leg. Gesturing to one of her men in the hallway, Clarke watched him usher in a stiff man with neatly trimmed white hair and fewer wrinkles than one would expect from someone his age.  Dante Wallace, their captive and the former President of the Raven Rock Mountain Complex, also known as Site R, tripped on the outstretched arm of the corpse of one of his own soldiers. He righted himself, gasping when he looked back at what had caused him to stumble His hands trembled, pale eyes darting desperately around the Site R Command Center, eyes finally meeting hers.

Brigadier General Clarke Griffin gon Skaiyongon Sept kom Azgeda, the youngest, at age seventeen in more than fifty years, turned away from their only shot getting out of this mess peacefully, to the blank monitors.  She stepped forward until her nose was only inches from the screen. The aged screen’s light flickered over her austere face, highlighting the five pointed star with an arrow pointing up branded on her cheek, a symbol of her station.   

A slight youth of twelve with a circular crown of braided blonde hair, pale lips, dead blue eyes, and flat affect ran an eager thumb over the heft of her glaive.  Clarke could hear her bodyguard’s steps echo softly off of the concrete, coming in her direction. “Do you want me to take Wallace apart?” the kid asked in a voice terrifyingly devoid of emotion, like she was discussing the details of a curling match.

“No, Lotte.”  Clarke shook her head, the beads in the pair of thin braids on the left side of her face clacking softly.  “Not yet.”

“Got it!”  Clarke heard the short teenager with fluffy ebony hair and hollow cheeks, say behind her.  All of the security cameras winked to life. In one screen, countless grounders were housed in stacks of wire cages with thick steel locks.  In the second, more than three hundred people milled around in a large meeting hall. A gaunt young man’s ashen face, goggles settled on his forehead, popped up on the screen to Clarke’s left, his eyes screwed shut, nostrils flared, mouth wide open in a silent scream.  Inhaling deeply through her nose, she eased a steady stream of air out between her lips. She was an ice floe on river, a comet in the night sky. Her nerves and anger left her body with her breath. She nodded to herself. They had started harvesting his bone marrow, then.

Clarke snatched a radio from a bank of communications equipment.  She fiddled with the knob to set it to the frequency given her and thrust it towards Dante Wallace.  “Order them to back off.”

“You know I can’t do that.  It would be the end for my people.”

Clarke paced with a slight limp, the gash from a Reapers’ jagged blade weeping onto her trousers.  She pressed the rubbery antennae against her lips. “There has to be another way. A better way for peace.”

“Come now, General.  You left peace behind the minute you set charges on our venting system.”

Her second in command, a tall, handsome young man with dark curly hair, a dimpled chin, and a scraggly beard kicked a wastebasket against a wall with a clatter, denting the rolled steel.  He glared helplessly at the monitor displaying the remainder of the prisoners, one of whom was Octavia, his sister.

Clarke gazed intently at the video feed of the mix of guards, children, elders, men, and women on level five.  Swiftly reaching for a walkie, she squeezed lightly on the button for the radio. “Site-R Security Officers.”

“Who is this?” crackled over the speaker.

“Who do you think?  I have a powerful need to speak with the acting President.”  Clarke lowered the radio, her mouth a stern line. The security officer disappeared into a crowd of R-Men, hopefully seeking out Acting President Cage Wallace.

“Jasper’s dying!”  Bellamy railed. “We’re out of time.”

Monty’s nodded, fingers skimming across the interface.  Clarke could hear his panicked breathing as he worked to save his best friend.  Cage Wallace’s face winked up on the main monitor. He glared directly at the camera.  “What manner of vermin am I speaking with.”

“I am Brigadier General Clarke gon Skaiyongon Sept kom Azgeda, and I have your father.  Trade: him for our people.”

She sighed quietly.  There was no way they would get all of their people in exchange for the president.  If she was completely honest with herself, she knew that tragedy was inevitable. These were smart men, and she only had one Dante Wallace for an entire squad of her best scouts, along with half a squad of artillery.  Furthermore, the marrow in the bones of the Skaiyongon represented freedom to those trapped below the mountains. They were as likely to give it up as Clarke was to allow them to walk the earth unfettered by the chains that had prevented them from completely oppressing her people. 

Cage Wallace grimaced and tightened his grip on his walkie, the knuckles of his hand turning white.  Static echoed off of concrete walls and flooring as he pressed down on the radio’s button, lips moving, but no words forming.  She was done holding back. 

Pressing down on her own button, she drew the Glock she’d taken off of a security officer and aimed it at Dante’s chest.  She arched her eyebrows at him, one final chance. Nothing. She squeezed the trigger. The crack in the bunker was deafening, all the occupants of the control room, save Lotte, covering their ears and moaning.  Blood blossomed out of the wound in Dante’s sternum, soaking his dusty, pastel blue shirt. He dropped to his knees, before pitching face first onto the floor. He gasped for air like an eel on the bank, and Cage listened intently with every receding breath.  Eardrums painfully ringing, Clarke watched the young President through the barest of squints. 

Cage’s lip quivered, stormy tears rolling down his pasty cheeks as he fought them.  He turned on his heel and grabbed the vest of a burly young officer. They had a tight conversation, and the officer disappeared.  A brief pang of sympathy, for which she was oddly grateful, registered in her belly. It was a terrible thing to lose a parent like this.  Cage exited in the direction of the harvesting chamber.

Clarke switched radios to the one connecting her with the rest of the Coalition Army.  Noting the damage to the frequency linking her to the forces outside of Site R, she flipped a switch so that she could speak to her combat engineers. They were working on setting up the explosives to blow one of two final airlocked doors between the army and their friends.  Before patching through, she looked long and hard at the screen recording the door that had sprung shut behind them, sealing them off from the Commander and most of their forces. She would have to make do with the small platoon at hand. It would have to be enough to free her people.  Her family would be dead before they could get help.

Clarke brought the speaker to her mouth, addressing her demolitions expert.  “Barth, how close are you to being done?”

“We’re about twenty minutes out for the first door and forty-five minutes after that for the second.”

“That isn’t nearly fast enough.”

“There’s nothing to be done.  We have just enough to get through both doors, and I’m still not 100% sure that will do for door number two.  Half of our supply is still out there.”

Clarke fumed at the trap they’d waltzed right into.  “Thank you. I appreciate your expertise.”

She took her thumb off of the button.  “Monty, any chance we can get through either of these doors?”

Monty grunted for a moment.  The only sound in the bunker were the soft  _ thubs _ of Monty’s fingers making selections and typing on the glass interface.  Bellamy silently caught Clarke’s attention and nodded in the direction of the camera in the harvesting chamber.  Officers were trying their best to hold down a tall, thin woman with a knee brace, which she used to crack one of her captors in the forehead.  Raven grimaced, and he let go of her leg. Kicking out at the man’s stomach, she tried to roll off of the table in his direction. 

Clarke peeked over her shoulder at Monty, whose full attention was on his work, her stomach twisting with the understanding that the reason they moved somebody new onto the table was that Jasper was dead with no more marrow to give.  “Update on the door to our army?”

“Not anything you’re going to like.  It looks like they physically destroyed the button and linkage to the door when they shut it on us, knowing that we’d have to blast the other two doors and fight our way past them to get back out.”

“What about the doors to the lower tunnels?”

“They’ve corrupted the programming on the electronic locks.  Now, they’re manual only.”

Clarke grabbed a pink wrapped candy out of a jar next to the walkies, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth.  It was chewy and fruity, tasting like artificial strawberries and cream. She savored it. Candy had been a rarity on the Ark, and was all but extinct on the ground.  She chuckled to herself: now she had something to chew on.

She swallowed the sweet, and suddenly her hand went to her throat.  It was the perfect solution. Ice shot through her veins and her heart hammered against her ribcage as the thoughts tumbled and polished in her mind.  This catapulted straight past ruthless, teetering on abominable. 

How far had she fallen that she could even consider something like this?  The ghost of her father begged her to find a different solution. If the survival of her people meant going this far, then perhaps her people didn’t deserve to survive.  

The advocate for austerity bore Chancellor Jaha’s voice.  Sacrifices must be made for the good of the many. Her mind went to the Culling, the secret Jaha floated her father to protect.  The desperate measure the Skaiyongon had been sent to an irradiated ground to prevent. That venture had failed, as evidenced by the shower of falling stars they saw shortly after Raven’s calamitous crash to the earth, consisting of three hundred and twenty coffins burning up in the atmosphere.  She squeezed her eyes shut and picked at the rough cuticles of her fingers.  _ They’re my people.  I have to. _

Clarke pinched her chin between her thumb and forefinger.  Her innards shivered. “What if we let radiation do the work for us?  Could we vent in outside air, irradiating the base?”

“Whoa,” Bellamy shook his head.  “Clarke, that is a lot of people down there.  Children, old people, people who aren’t soldiers or officers.”

“Working on it now.”  Monty’s voice cracked.  Clarke turned towards him, noticing the tear tracks flowing from rage-filled eyes.  The young spy had figured out Jasper was dead.

Bellamy gritted his teeth.  “There’s got to be another way.”

“There isn’t.  Our reinforcements are trapped outside.  We don’t have enough explosives to blast our way through without planting them with time-consuming precision.  We can’t get any of the doors open from here. Everyone in there is either in a cage or shackled to a wall.” Clarke said.  “They will drill every last person in there before Barth can finish the calculations to place the explosives for door number two.  Then, they come to the ground and, what, let us live our lives in peace? They have guns; they have missiles; they have high tech artillery.  Do you honestly think they’re going to look at us with our knives and arrows and suddenly turn into good neighbors? What choice do we have?”

“One that doesn’t include the genocide of over three hundred people!”  

“You have until Monty gets into the vent system to come up with something better.  Otherwise, know this: I will become whatever monster I need to be to guarantee the safety of our people.”  Clarke’ stared without blinking at the level five screen. She watched a pair of small, disheveled kick a soccer ball back and forth in the packed cafeteria to bide time.  A preteen girl with long, slender fingers played the piano. At a smaller table in the corner, three elderly women with perfectly coiffed white hair played a board game with letters.  A small voice inside screamed at her not to do this, demanding to know at what point she had become her mother, or worse.  _ These people kidnapped and murdered thousands of Kongeda over the course of three centuries.  Children. Elders. Civilians. Just so that they could send their citizens outside and have the perfect super soldiers. _

Nobody in that bunker was innocent.

The command room grew eerily quiet.  She realized Monty had stopped typing.  “Monty, status report.”

“It’s ready.  Just pull that lever,” Monty gestured to a hefty rod with a thick blue rubber handle.  ”Radiation will flood levels zero through seven, killing anyone who hasn’t already had the treatment.”

Clarke stared at the lever for a long moment before tearing her eyes away to look at Raven.  Her friend’s face was sagging, her eyes half-lidded. Gritting her teeth, Clarke reached for the handle.  “My humanity, for the lives of my people.”

She felt a warm hand atop hers, fingers interlocking.  Bellamy whispered, “ _ Our _ humanity, for the lives of our people.”

Together, they pulled.

Immediately, loud sirens blared deep into the core of the base.  Yellow lights flashed in the control room, warning of imminent death.  Clarke walked forward until her nose was touching the screen of level five.  She would see her death sentence through. 

At first, the ones closest to the vents looked around in confusion, scratching absently at their skin.   It advanced, first to those who came to help, and beyond. Lesions erupted on their skin, and spread like a barn fire, slowly at first with increasing ferocity. Clusters of people panicked, rushing towards the doors, as escape were possible.  A tiny girl with two blonde pigtails dropped to her knees, dry-heaving. A short balding man, most likely her father reached for her with his hand, but his fingers curled and the limb trembled. His daughter was convulsing on the floor and he collapsed, quaking, unable to reach her.  A bony old man curled into himself, a large pool of vomit next to his bloody face. Clarke heard one of her male companions retching in the corner to her left. Her eyes darted desperately to the still soccer ball, as Clarke’s subconscious attempted to shield itself. She tore them away to land on a toddler’s shoe nearby.  She would bear witness, until they were all still.

Lotte waited quietly, while Clarke stood vigil.  When the last lungs drew breath, Lotte alerted Clarke of an unfortunate fact.  “Cage escaped, General.”

Clarke stepped back so that she could scan the array for him.  She saw him bolting down the corridors towards the reaper’s entrance.  He must have received the treatment before anyone else. It didn’t matter.  The Delfikru were waiting in the tunnels. Hopefully, they could break in when he pulled the manual release.

She whispered a silent prayer to the gods of Earth and Sky, noting that all of the R-Men in the harvesting chamber were dead, including whatever sham of a medical professional had been doing the bone marrow extraction.  A pity. Her bitter heart would loved to have seen him strung up and held accountable for each death he had caused in the most painful ways possible. No. She couldn’t think like this.  _ Remember who you are. _

Only then, did she tear her gaze away. Monty’s eyes bulged, slightly, his breath shallow and posture rigid.  He had risen, most likely to get a better look at his handiwork, and frozen in place, hand still inches above the display.  Bellamy crouched in the corner, scrubbing tears from his eyes with the back of his canvas sleeve. Lotte appeared as she always did, completely devoid of emotional response of any kind.  For one brief moment, Clarke envied her, before recanting, knowing exactly what horrors had been visited upon her to create the specific breed of demon she’d become. Clarke screwed her eyes shut for a moment, almost caving to the vacuum tearing her heart to pieces.   _ I’m sorry, _ flitted across her mind.   _ But you’re not _ , whispered a bleaker voice.  They stood, silent witnesses to the end of an entire people.  What exactly do you say to that?  
  


Monty broke first, meandering over to the R-men’s radios, and selecting one.  He stared at it for a moment, as if pondering what he was supposed to do with this hunk of wires, solder, and plastic.  He pulled a multi-tool from his pocket, pried it open, and began fussing with the wires of the frequency dial. Closing the case back up, he walked over to Clarke and handed her the radio.  “We should be able to reach Heda, now.”

It was the loud blast that roused Clarke from her stupor.  Her demolitions team must be through the first door. She took a deep breath, before puffing it out, accepting the radio from Monty’s scarred hand.  Reaching for the frequency dial, she turned it to the number to the Commander’s radio. Heda’s anxious voice barked out of the speakers.

“-you, spichenlo!  Come in, or whatever you’re supposed to say on these things.”

Clarke radioed back.  “Good to hear your voice, Heda.”

“Clarke,”  Clarke noted the panic in her voice and use of her personal name over title.  “Report, damnit. Where are you? What’s happened? We got some strange message about an R-Man alone in the tunnels from the Delphi, and heard an explosion.”

“Heda, I apologize for the lack of communication, but we had a series of… setbacks.”

“What kind of setbacks?”

“Setbacks?!” Bellamy whispered.  “An entire people, gone, was a setback?”

Lotte reached out and placed her leather gloved hand over his lips, shaking her head and mouthing  _ “Heda.” _  He glared at her, but was silent.  Clarke reminded herself to reward Lotte after this, although she couldn’t think of a single thing Lotte would want.

"They rigged the door you all are standing outside of to close behind us, splitting our forces and trapping us in between the airlocks.  As my demo people out there probably explained to you, blowing that door would collapse the tunnel. We either had to blow the doors going forward, or stay trapped in here.  In their panic, they made a monumental mistake. Their command center was in this corridor, which they locked behind both a key card and a passcode. Not realizing we had people who could get through, they left only a small force to guard it with their recently deposed president.  

Their medic had already started harvesting the bone marrow and it was only a matter of time before they started distributing it.  Our captured soldiers were being added to three centuries worth of dead, one by one-”

“What did you do?”  The fear had receded from the Commander’s voice, replaced by quiet dismay.

“I opened the vents.  Without the treatment, they didn’t have a chance.”  

The radio was silent.  “I see.”

“We’re almost in now, and we can let you in with the Delphi, if their captive hasn’t already granted them access.”

“I will ride to the tunnels, then, and enter with them.”

“Understood.  Azgeda, out.”

Clarke clipped the radio to her belt and went out into the hall.  She admired the crumbling concrete and twisted girders of the blasted airlock.   She wandered down the stairs, fingers trailing down the cold, metal bannister. Three centuries worth of paint had given the surface a rough texture.  She loosened a round silver flask engraved with a gripping beast mountain lion that she kept tucked in her waistband and took a quick pull of a rough bourbon.

As she descended the final step, she could see her demolitions team finishing its work on the inner door.  Barth was standing over a pile of papers, covered in equations in his untidy scrawl. He had been the youngest journeyman in the Ark’s history, but murdering his abusive father had gotten him exiled to the ground like the rest of them.  He and Raven were in constant competition, vying for Top Tech. She prayed, internally, that they could get to Raven before she succumbed to her injuries.

Barth heard her footsteps and looked up at her with a smile.  “Almost done.”

Clark’s second, York a brawny ginger-haired boy, looked up from watching over Barth’s shoulder.  Barth was sketching a combination of numbers, Greek letters, and mathematical symbols. York’s eyes followed every quill stroke.  When they got back to Niagara, the capital of Azgeda, they would have to sit down with Raven and have a long talk about how to shift the boy to her tutelage without dishonoring him.  It might be too late, but another skilled engineer would be far more valuable than a simple general.

Barth’s grubby assistant trotted over to them, tapping Clarke on the shoulder and giving a thumbs up.  He called his team back, “Outta the way, you sick bastards.”

 

Barth and Clarke trotted up to the previous landing, out of the way of shrapnel. with the team.  Everyone pulled up the cloths they wore around their neck to protect their noses and lungs. He pulled out a hefty black box with a large chrome switch and a thick receiver.  He made to hand it to Clarke. She shook her head, stomach churning. “I’ve flipped enough switches for one day.”

“Suit yourself.”

With that, his thick partial thumb flicked the switch.   _ Bwoosh! _  Billows of concrete particles rushed up the stairs,enveloping Clarke’s team.  Her ears rang violently, building on the damage from the pistol in the control room.  She wondered how permanent this hearing loss would be, wishing they’d thought that part through when devising this particular plan.  She made a note to mandate some form of hearing protection in the future. Raven or Barth would certainly be able to figure something out.

After the dust cleared, she looked around for her crew.  Lotte was standing directly behind her, dust particles sticking to red rivulets descending from her ears.  Clarke swiped her fingers underneath an earlobe, coming away with blood. Ruptured eardrums. Well, shit. She supposed that this was the last thing that should be on her mind right now, but there it was.

“Bellamy!”  She called out.  He poked his head out of the control room door.  “You take the team and get to the extraction chamber.  York and Barth, you head to the room with the cages to get our people out.  Monty, go let the Delphi in, if they aren’t already. Lotte, you’re with me.  Everybody, stay alert. We don’t know who all had the treatment.”

Barth looked at her quizzically, questioning where she was headed, but she waved him off.  With that, her party split off down the claustrophobic grey hallway. Clarke and Lotte descended into the bowels of the Raven Rock complex.  A myriad of Hallways split off of the main stairwell, leading to storage rooms, classrooms, and living quarters. Clarke didn’t bother with them because the cameras had indicated they were empty.  On the landing of Level 5, she hooked right, coming to a stop in front of a pair of thick, steel doors painted an olive drab with cafeteria spray painted in block stencil at eye level. Clarke pulled open the door, and a pile of corpses spilled out into the corridor  

Lotte nimbly hopped back, but Clarke was not so spry.  The bodies cascaded into her knees and soon she was flat on her back, hip deep in the cadavers of her victims.  Lotte immediately ran up and hooked her hands under Clarke’s armpits, pulling her out. 

Clarke scrambled to her feet, frantically dusting herself off, eyes flicking wildly around the room.  She smoothed her pants and wrangled her heartbeat back under control. Stepping around the remains, she opened the other door, walking it back in anticipation of the overflow.  It reeked of blood, vomit, urine, and excrement. Given that she had been apprenticed to her mother on the Ark, these smells were not foreign. However, the sheer volume was like nothing she’d ever experienced.  Vomit crept up Clarke’s esophagus, but she forcefully swallowed it back down.

Clenching her fists, Clarke navigated the pile of bodies, nearly tripping over someone’s ankle, before righting herself.  She zigzagged around the dead bodies until she was standing in the center of the room. She haltingly turned in a circle, seeking the eyes of every corpse.  Soccer players. Pianist. Board gamers. Easing herself to her knees, she sat, back straight, with her palms on her knees. Her lungs drew measured breaths as she stared, unblinking, at a pool of bile inches away from the front of her kneecaps.

That was how Lexa found her, kneeling in meditation in the cafeteria amongst the dead.  Lexa looked around wildly, trying to process both the carnage and the technology. Clarke could feel the Commander’s green eyes settle on the back of her neck.  She imagined she could hear the echo of the whispers of Lexa’s guards and the Trikru warriors with the words of her victims. The vibration of Lexa’s soft bootsoles padded in her direction, stopping at her elbow.  

Clarke turned her face up to meet the Commander’s gaze.  When finally able to observe the remorse permeating Clarke’s face, the anger melted from behind Lexa’s eyes.  Clake willed Lexa not to pity her.

“Do you regret it?” Lexa asked softly.  Clarke winced and pointed to her ears. Lexa blinked rapidly and her mouth made a surprised “o.”  She repeated herself, this time at the top of her lungs, “DO YOU REGRET IT?”

“Yes.  But I would do it again.”

Lexa stood next to her, ramrod straight, her face unreadable.  Both of her hands were placed on the thick, cylindrical pommel of the sword at her side, the only motion, the movement of her breath.  Clarke wondered what the women was after, when there was so much else to be done. Still, she remained, and Clarke was grateful that, in this specific moment, she didn’t have to be alone.  Finally, Lexa turned on her heels and left Clarke alone to her contemplation, presumably because there were better things to do than lament the necessity of a decision a general of minor import had been forced to make.  Truthfully, there were better things for Clarke to be doing, but she needed to be here, to be accountable for the enormous loss of life she had perpetuated. She lingered in that pose, in that room, for the remainder of the afternoon with no one but Lotte, standing guard outside the door.

Later that day, beneath the shadows of the Appalachian mountains, Clarke scrubbed the blood off of her hands in a porcelain basin, after a successful field amputation left a thirteen year old second without a leg, but with his life.  A stocky young woman wearing scout armor, Trikru, if the facepaint was any indication, stood in the entrance of her tent, watching with her hands behind her back. Clarke saw her lips move, but only a muffled drone come out. “You’ll have to speak louder!”

“HEDA HAS REQUESTED YOUR PRESENCE!”

Clarke nodded, following her as she disappeared out the door.  She watched the young woman’s blonde braid as they walked, admiring the intricate pattern woven into it.  After her vigil, there were more things to do than Clarke had people to do them. She had finally found a moment to eat a small plate of salty ham and hardtack, only to be interrupted when they brought in the Second who had been walking right next to his First, when she stepped on a landmine.   Clarke hated to admit that it was nice to have a few moments when all she had to do was walk in a relatively straight line.

When Clarke walked through the tent flaps, Lexa was seated at a table covered in a thin woven cloth, wearing crude spectacles and reading correspondence on yellowed paper.  She didn’t look up. Clarke stopped in the center of the tent, next to the rusty scrap metal table overwhelmed by candles, folding her hands behind her back. She massaged one of the beads from a bracelet between two fingers.  The Trikru servants clearly had been busy, rolling up maps and breaking down tables. However, they had left Heda her work table. Clarke wondered how intentional it had been to place her work area as far away as possible from that ridiculous driftwood throne.

She’s beautiful, Clarke’s id whispered for the thousandth time since the two first met five weeks ago at the summit to discuss battle strategy to take down Site R.  Lexa barely seemed real, like something out of a skaald’s saga or an Ark vid. She was on the tall side of average, and the muscle developed from a lifetime of hard training and an adequate childhood diet.  Her fingers were delicate, and she had a sharp greek nose coupled with a narrow jaw. The most striking of her features, though, were her fierce green eyes, colored like the blue spruce of Azgeda’s southern forest whipping in the wind. 

Lexa set the letter down and rapidly wrote out a response in her tidy handwriting.  She removed her glasses, carefully folding them into each other, then into the thick clamshell case.  Resting her elbows on her table, she steepled her long, slender fingers together. Her brows furrowed.  Apparently, she didn’t know how to start. 

Clarke’s belly tensed, while Lexa, too, made only muffled noises when she spoke.  Clarke sighed in frustration. With any luck, Site-R would have hearing aids. “I’m sorry, but my ears were damaged in the fight.  Can we please write out our conversation?”

Nodding, Lexa searching her possessions for a pair of quills and stack of paper.  She gestured to a chair across from her. Clarke silently walked over steel and canvas camp chair with the soft pelt of a furry mammal with deep brown pelage secured to the seat for warmth, and sat down.  Her stomach fluttered and she swallowed, betraying her nerves at her first one-on-one meeting with the leader of the Kongeda. She leaned forward, as well, crossing her arms on the table and pulling them close to her chest.  Arching her eyebrows, she kept her mouth shut. Was this ‘I’m sorry, but you murdered hundreds of innocent people, so we’re going to have to take unpleasant steps to address that?’

_ “You killed three hundred and fifty-six R-Men when you opened those vents.  An entire people,”  _  Lexa wrote.  So, yes.  _ “Do you stand by your decision?” _

_ "I will be accountable for it, if that’s what you mean.” _

_ “Would you act differently?” _

_ “No.” _

Lexa nodded again.   _ “I spoke with your people, the ones in that room with you, as well as many of the captives, including both the Skaiyongon they were using for bone marrow, and the Azgeda they were using for blood.  I have determined that what you did, you did for the right reason at the right time, and that it was wholly necessary. Furthermore, I would like to add, for what it’s worth, it’s exactly what I would have done, too.” _

_ “That won’t help me sleep.” _

_ “The things we must do to serve our people seldom will. _ ”

Clarke squinted her eyes, desperately trying to read Heda.  Everyone in the Ice Nation painted her as a deadly adversary, unpredictable and ruthless.  Over the course of the past few weeks, Clarke had learned that Lexa was both of those things, while also being pragmatic, merciful, and compassionate.  It was not surprising that the rumors were false. Nia was a tyrant and a brute, lending little weight to any sort of evaluation of character.

Lexa smiled.  “ _ They’ve started calling you Wanheda, you know.” _

_ “The Commander of Death?”   _ Clarke’s blood ran cold.   _ “Heda, I don’t know where people get such blasphemy.  I was unaware of that, and I will put a stop to it at once.” _

_ “It’s too late for that, I’m afraid.  And besides, you’ve earned it.” _

_ “For murdering three hundred and fifty-six people?” _

_ “For leading a successful campaign against the R-Men, neutralizing their defenses and taking every step necessary to free our people, no matter how distasteful.” _

_ “You led the campaign, Heda.” _

_ “I commanded the campaign.  You led it. We would not have been victorious without your quick thinking and understanding of Old World Tech.”  _  Lexa paused for a moment to consider spelling when she reached the unfamiliar phrase Raven had coined to describe technology of the Ark and Site-R.   _ “I will allow the name to stand.  You have earned this honor.” _

_ “Then why do I feel like I need to bathe in a boiling cauldron?” _

_ “Because, sometimes, that is what it means to lead.  I would be more concerned if you didn’t. Come, sit. We have much to discuss.” _

Lexa picked up a cast iron kettle Clarke hadn’t noticed, and produced a small teacup painted with twisted dragons from somewhere under the table.  She poured Clarke a cup, before serving herself. This was a treat. Clarke had only had it a handful of times since she landed, as it was scarce. She wrapped heavily scarred fingers around the warm ceramic.

_ “What do you intend to do about Nia?” _

_ “What do you mean?” _

_ “Klark, let us speak freely.  For the remainder of this conversation, nothing you say can be held against you by me or by your queen.  This is your opportunity to speak without consequence. Do not abuse it.” _

Clarke nodded.   _ “What makes you think I’m planning anything?” _

_ “Because I’ve watched you these past few weeks.  Your people follow you because they love you, not because they fear you.  You push for advances in healing and care about the commoners. You are the kind of leader that inspires people, and to Nia, who leads through fear, that makes you incredibly dangerous.  I’ve known her for longer than you. Once she figures this out, you will be at war with her, whether you realize it or not. You will want to make the first move.” _

_ “I have a proposition for you _ . _  Plan your revolt.  Use your success from today to inspire the people to follow you.  I will, in secret, lend you whatever support you need: men, weapons,spies, assassins.  When you succeed, because I know that you will, I will legally recognize you as Azplana and we can formalize our alliance.  I then offer you a political marriage to secure said alliance.” _

Clarke’s eyes widened to the magnitude of her offer.  Her mind should be buzzing with the myriad of possibilities this opened up, but got stuck on the image of standing under a festive arch handfasted to the homely Boudalan chieftain, or one of his equally unattractive sons.   _ “I’m happy for your help, but a marriage?  Exactly who would I be marrying?” _

Lexa erupted in sparkling laughter and her cheeks pinked.   _ “You think I’d match you with Indra or Raleigh?  I’m not sure which of you would murder me faster.” _

_ “I think you would match me with a pony if it got Nia off the throne,”  _ Clarke said, grinning.  Lexa lost all composure, gasping for breath around giggles.  She’d never seen Lexa laugh before, and it was marvelous.

_ “I promise not to match you with a pony, or a war horse, for that matter.”  _  Lexa wiped her eyes.

_ “Good.  Suntzu is insufferable enough as it is.  No need to make him jealous.” _

Lexa suddenly retreated back into her shell.  Clarke blinked at the complete downshift in the conversation.

_ “I intended to offer you my hand to fast.  But I would like to be clear that I won’t require it.  And, if you are not attracted to women, that is perfectly acceptable.  We wouldn’t be required to-” _  Lexa stopped writing.   Clarke froze. Lexa started again,  _ You could take whatever lovers you choose.” _

_ “A political marriage.  To you?” _

_ “Yes.  It would cement your commitment to the Coalition.” _

_ “Won’t it piss off all of the other clans?  The Ice Nation would have your ear. Politically speaking, Raleigh or Indra would be the better match.”  _

Lexa looked uncomfortable.  _  “They’ve been begging me to handfast since I ascended.  And what better way to keep your people focused on the greater good?  Roman and Byzantine emperors married for political gain, sometimes to allies and others to enemies.  I don’t see why it wouldn’t be beneficial to everyone.” _

_ “You know the other clans and their ambassadors better than I.  I will choose to trust your judgment. You’ll have your handfast.  As to what I intend to do about Nia, step one is to cut the legs out from the aristocracy.  Starve her supporters, and we starve Nia. Next, is to rally the people. Finally, challenge Nia.” _

Lexa furrowed her brows again, and shook her head.  Her mouth became a thinner line.  _ “I mean no offense, General, but you’ve only been a warrior for the past three years.  You’re very talented, and your strategic savvy makes you an exceptional leader. Nia was born with a sword in her hand, and has been at this game a lot longer than either of us.  It’s the real reason why I never directly challenged her. The positive is, her paranoia has led her to surround herself with people far weaker than she. If you can somehow find a way to use that,  we’d have her.” _

_ “What if I feed that?  Do you know about the people she’s disposed of because their prowess could threaten her reign?  Telling an Azgeda warrior of any level of importance that they’re there because they’re the weakest link is going to insult their honor so badly, they’ll have to turn on Nia, or risk looking weak to their troops.” _

_ “Which doesn’t make them loyal to you.” _

_ “No, but it does destabilize the clan to the point that picking off the leadership will be that much easier.” _

They plotted through the night, into the morning, burning the papers after they had ceased.  For the first time in the three years she’d been on the ground, Clarke had someone with an equally sharp mind to brainstorm with.  Lexa’s extensive political training, as well as her experience wrangling the twelve clans, gave Clarke insight into grounder politics that she sorely needed.   _ This is going to work,  _ Clarke thought. _  I will take the throne, administer justice to the oppressors, and bring prosperity to the people.  Then, I can worry about this union business.  _ With any luck, and they’d need lots of that, the Kongeda will find true and lasting peace for the first time in three centuries.

  
  



	2. Chapter 1: Lexa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put the Trigedasleng translations in parentheses under the paragraph, as it seemed the least clunky/confusing way.

CHAPTER 1:  Lexa

Earth 2358 AD

 

Azgeda was late.  Lexa picked at a splinter in the pine driftwood on armrest of her throne with midlength, well-manicured nails.  The curtains behind her had been changed out for yellow, red, and orange for the S'wain Festival. The large banner to the left of her throne depicted a hunting scene with deer and fowl, while its mirror to the right showed farmers with bountiful harvests.  A single thick, red candle rose out of a wreath of pumpkin vines.

She had squabbled with her servants about the wisdom of her impulse to cover every available surface with candles, her one concession to exactly how much the darkness terrified her.  She eventually compromised, cognitively understanding the extra risk they would cause, and now candles only sat secure in abras and chandeliers. There were just enough to banish the midnight darkness to the corners of the room.

The hall was filled with sleepy ambassadors and chieftains, mostly graying braids and beards with a few youthful faces mixed in.  They had been rapidly roused once word had been received that the Azgeda delegation had crossed the threshold of Polis’ main gates, long hours after they were expected.  Klark sent word that they would come directly to her, and settle into their quarters after the necessary pleasantries. 

Lexa took a deep breath and looked over at her oldest son.  Jacob had pale skin and bright blue eyes, like his mother’s. The thin nose that came to a sharp point, ears that protruded from his head, and the mop of red hair all came from his sire.  He bore a mark on his cheek for his profession, an Azgeda tradition, a healer since the tender age of six. Now just past his thirteenth birthday, he was a well-respected journeyman, having proven both clever and resourceful in a crisis. Lexa’s scrawny ginger-haired brother, Galen inched his massive hand forward before mussing the boy’s hair fondly, earning him a strangled giggle from Jacob and a glare from Lexa.  The young man was having enough trouble fighting the losing battle against his fidgets, his foot quivering with the effort not to tap it.  He did not need his uncle increasing the difficulty.

It was stark contrast to his younger sister.  She was fierce, with steady blue eyes and a grim mouth, standing stock still at Indra’s side.  Klark said that Anya looked a carbon copy of her younger self, except for the dour countenance.  She already earned one stroke of blue warpaint, in addition to her cheek scar, at six years of age.  She wore her sword as someone who had been born using it. In a certain sense, she had.

Lexa’s eyes settled on two empty chairs to Indra’s left, before launching her glance over to the ambassadors.  She spent an extra second looking at Abby kom Skaikru, the latest addition to their ranks, accompanied tonight by her younger daughter, the progeny of a former lover, if Lexa understood correctly.  The young woman was of an age with Jacob, tall and thin, with black hair cut in a bob and dark eyes. Mara’s slender fingers gripped a colored pencil as she drew in the sketchbook Lexa had gifted her. Jacob had whined about not being allowed to bring his art supplies, and Lexa had been forced to remind him that the Crown Prince of Azgeda sat quietly during formal affairs.

While the other ambassadors chatted amongst themselves, Abby sat silently with her hands in her lap.  She wore a simple blue quilted nylon jacket and dark blue jeans tucked into heavily worn black boots, accompanied by a grim expression, a small upgrade from her daily wear.  Lexa made a mental note to take Abby to market to get her something befitting her station. Klark indicated that resources had been so scarce on the Ark; they hadn’t bothered much with extra clothing for pomp and circumstance.  This was probably doubly true on their long cross-continent trek after their station landed in what had once been the north western part of Mexico.

Lexa smoothed the material of the black canvas of her overcoat, tensing her hands to stop them from further betrayal.  Her dark hair was skillfully braided and well-coiffed, with expertly preserved fall leaves woven in, having forced her attendants to redo it at twice more than usual for today.  She was far past pretending that it wasn’t all for Klark’s benefit.

The lift’s gears erupted into ear-splitting creaks as it screamed to life, another casualty of the last coup attempt.  Everyone but Abby fought the urge to cover their ears, lest they be seen as weak. Another feature of the Ark apparently had been unfortunate occasions involving screeching machinery.  After a blessedly short few minutes, the lift came to a stop. Lexa relaxed her grip on the throne’s polished driftwood handles. The doors whined open, and heavy boot steps echoed down the hall.  

Klark rounded the corner first, waves of blonde hair, interspersed with thin braids spilling out of her angular crown of antler and bone.  Interwoven into her braids were preserved fall leaves, a nod to her Trikru wife. Three dark blue vertical stripes of warpaint transversed her right eye, with one horizontal underscoring the black deerskin leather eyepatch covering her left.  One solitary stripe ran down her chin, from bottom of her lip to jawline. She allowed a light amount of smokiness around her eyes for contrast. Two large, thick halfmoon scars bookended her eyes, stretching from her forehead to her cheekbones, the marks of a Queen of Azgeda.  

Lexa tensed her hands into fists, making note of a daub of thick muck running from Klark’s chin to left cheekbone, a poultice.  Rage flooded her consciousness before she wrangled it back down. She was exhausted at Klark coming home in pieces. She would have Galen tend to it later, as he had more healing talent in his little finger than that idiot Klark kept around for such purposes.  

Klark’s face was solemn, bordering on arrogance, chin tilted higher than she used to be comfortable with.   Her shoulders were back, spine straight, feet gliding forward. Her one remaining chip of sapphire focused solely on Lexa’s mossy green irises.  Lexa’s eyes glazed slightly and her mouth dried out. Before Lexa could as much as shift uncomfortably in her seat, Klark swept forward and sank to her knee, with the knuckles of both hands on the ground.  She bowed her head until it was resting on the upright knee and raised it so she was looking at Lexa once again.

Klark’s bodyguard, Lotte, and her generals Oktavia and Bellomy followed directly behind her, who all immediately dropped to their knees as well, only keeping their heads down until bidden otherwise.  One short, stout woman with long wisps of greying hair that Lexa had never seen before trailed behind, but she settled on both knees and bent farther at the waste. The new ambassador. The remainder of Klark’s retinue waited in the hallway.

Lexa nodded her head and the delegation from the Ice Nation rose.  Lexa enunciated clearly so that Klark and Lotte could read her lips.  “Mounin hou, Azplana en Azgedakru.” [welcome home, Queen of the Ice nation and people of the Ice Nation.]

“Mochof, Heda.  Mae yu loca pejo disha S'wain.”  

[Thank you, Commander.  May you find joy this Fall Festival]

“Please, take your time settling into your quarters.  Dawn comes early.” With that, everyone was dismissed.  The chieftains and a few of the braver ambassadors grumbled at the brevity and lack of ceremony.  To her credit, Klark remained stoic, but the Blake siblings looked unsettled. Lotte’s affect was eerily flat, but then again, it always was.  A closer look at the Azgeda contingent revealed battered travel wear and quickly bandaged wounds, with an attempt to disguise using coats and cloaks.  Klark’s armor was missing a plate on the shoulder, and another plate had been hastily reattached to her midsection. This would explain their tardiness.

Lexa looked around for Abby, only to find the woman had quickly disappeared.  She whispered to the closest servant to have Abby meet her in her quarters and wait for her there, with Lexa’s library at her disposal.  Mara had rushed over to Jacob, chatting excitedly at the prospect of the promised sleepover. Then, she turned back to Klark, signing using Trigeda Sign Language, an expanded set of hand gestures Harper had worked with Kongeda language experts to create in response to the fact that Klark’s entire demolitions team experienced varying degrees of deafness in the invasion of the mountain.  _ “Robbers or rebels?” _

Klark shook her head.   _ “I have no idea.  They weren’t exactly waving flags around.” _

Lexa nodded.   _ “I’ll send a party out to investigate tomorrow.  In the meantime, go see Galen about that nastiness on your chin before coming to bed.” _

Klark raised her left hand and started a sign, no doubt to say that it was perfectly fine, but closed it at Lexa’s glare.  Her ambassador already gone, Klark beckoned for Bellomy and Oktavia to follow her out. She rolled her eyes at Klark’s exceptionally attractive back.

Lexa wrung her hands walking down the hallway to her quarters.  She had wrestled with exactly how to prepare Abby for Klark since Skaikru had stumbled through the gates, without full disclosure.  She feared Klark would not make it back to Polis, and Abby would have to grieve all over again. Lexa had taken steps to describe the Kongeda’s culture, particularly the brutal arithmetic that guided life and death decisions, with the hope Abby would one day understand the reasoning behind the choices that led to Wanheda’s ascension to the throne in Azgeda.  They were about to find out how successful Lexa’s efforts were. She stopped in the doorway, placing her hands on either side of the frame, closing her eyes and whispering a prayer to the gods, before stepping inside.

Abby was seated in Klark’s favorite tan leather chair against the north wall, legs tucked under her body.  Her grey hair was pulled away from her face, and her narrow nose was buried in a Gonasleng translation of Ovid’s  _ Metamorphoses _ , sharp, dark eyes pouring over the pages.  She licked her forefinger and carefully turned the paper.  

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of Lexa’s neck stood up.  She heard a clatter come from the hallway, causing her to turn around, just in time to see the dark shape standing directly behind her, and catch the knife blade arcing through the air towards her neck.  She lunged to the side, out of its way and kicked out at the shadow’s midsection. Her boot connected, pushing him back, but giving him the opportunity to grab it and yank her feet out from underneath her.  She went sprawling. She could see more figures rush into the room out of her peripheral vision. She heard a scream from somewhere, but didn’t have time to worry about it.

Lexa rolled out of the way of his next strike and to her feet.  She slid into a back stance and took a moment to assess her situation.  Abby put the couch between herself and one opponent, while three others were arranging themselves to come at Lexa.  She heard a loud clatter in the hallway followed by the high-pitched crash of broken porcelain, indicating that there were more assassins out there.  

Lexa grabbed a plate off of the nearest end table and hurtled it at the goon going after Abby.  It smashed on the back of his head, causing him to stumble into the chair. Striking out with her sword at the opponent to her right, she lapsed into the viper fighting form from her childhood, one that favored puncturing strikes over slashes.  

Klark barreled in, catching another assassin standing in the doorway in mid spine with her shoulder.  He shrieked, sprawling to the ground face first. Klark staggered, as she tried to slow her momentum, to avoid pitching headlong into the bed.

One of the men fighting Lexa broke off to face off against Klark.  He lunged at Klark’s left breast with his push dagger and she barely brought her blade up to parry in time.  Her fist sunk into the flesh on the side of his midsection as she landed a solid punch with her free hand. While her attention was otherwise occupied, the man she’d sent sprawling to the floor got back to his feet, advancing on Klark’s back.   
  
Klark got in a lucky strike at her opponent’s neck, her blade shearing through the spinal column, burying itself in the flesh on the far side.  As she worked to free her blade, the assassin behind her raised his short sword to land a killing blow. Lexa’s heart was in her throat. Opening herself up to attack from the assassin to her right, which the burly man failed to take advantage of, she threw her weight into the tall woman in front of her, sending them both careening into the man behind Klark.  This sent the three of them down in a tangled heap. The blade’s tip caught Klark across the back, leaving a gash stretching from right shoulder to the bottom to her left rib cage.

  
Klark emitted a pained grunt and gave up on trying to free her sword.  She grabbed a spent wrought iron candelabra from the nightstand instead, glaring at the two left standing.  They both advanced on her, the one farthest away having given up on Abby, who had taken refuge in the armoire.  The burly assassin closest to Klark plunged his knife forward, aiming for her heart. Klark used the arms of the candelabra to capture his wrist between them.  She twisted the abra, and his wrist made a crackling noise, caught between two of its arms, causing him to cry out and drop his knife. She grabbed a clay pitcher from the nightstand and cracked it over his skull.  He collapsed in a heap at her feet.   


Lexa managed to extract herself from the two on the ground.  Lexa kicked to her feet and used her sword to dispatch the two remaining on the ground.  She reached into her jerkin and pulled out a throwing knife, hurling it forward in one motion.  It buried itself right between the eyes of the assassin closest to the armoire, and he dropped to the ground.  Her eyes searched the room as she returned to her defensive crouch. Klark stepped back to her sword and extracted it, keeping a wary eye for more danger.

“Are you alright,  _ ai niron _ ?” Lexa called out to Klark, who stared intently at Lexa’s lips when she spoke.

“Yep,” she said tightly.  “Just dandy.”

“Stay here, watch that one,” Lexa pointed to the unconscious one.  “I’m going to check on the kids.”

Klark’s facial expression twisted, before she mastered it, shoving the blank facade in place like like the blade of a guillotine.  “Copy that. But you’re not going to like the hallway.”

“I don’t like anything about this.”

Klark was right.  Lexa saw empty space where her bodyguards should have been.  Further down the hall, there were three dead assassins before the corridor turned to the left.  One lay in the ruins of a broken table, a priceless vase in shards it her feet. Another was slumped atop her, still dying from his wounds.  Klark had slashed him across the abdomen, guaranteeing him a slow death. Lexa stepped over him callously, meeting his eyes with her own so that he would understand that she could have chosen to ease his passing, but didn’t.  Lexa saw a pair of sandaled feet sticking out from the western leg of the corroder.

Lexa jogged around the corner in the direction of the children’s rooms to get a better grasp of the whole situation.  The two guards at the lift were dead. A pit of dread settled in her stomach as she realized that she hadn’t noticed her own guards’ absence on the way into her room before this whole business.  She had allowed herself to get so flustered by the situation with Abby and Klark that she hadn’t been nearly as careful as she normally was. The lift remained on their floor. Klark must have been coming to meet up with Lexa when the attack happened. Given the numbers, Lexa felt glad for that, as she would have struggled with this many by herself.  

She rushed to the children’s rooms on the far side of the tower.  Both of their guards had their throats cut outside of the room, the inside dark and deathly quiet.  Lexa snagged a hall torch with her off hand and readied her sword as she crept towards the doorway. She heard the sounds of more fighting coming from her bedroom, but she knew in her heart that Klark would kill her stone dead if she left the children now.

She quietly called through the door, “Fear is the path to the dark side-”*

“Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”* Jacob whispered back.  It was a call and response phrase Skaikru would recognize, but her own people would not. 

Lexa relaxed.  She walked in with the torch, shining it around the bedroom.  Jacob, clutching little Jasper, and Mara huddled in the back corner behind Anya, who was trying to stand tall with her trench knife in her hand.  There were four dead assassins, one directly in front of the children with the elk antler handle of Anya’s favorite dagger protruding from his blonde neck-beard.  Lotte was holding her short glaive in one hand and clutching Jasper’ bloody baby blanket to a gaping hole in her leather armor. Lexa looked Lotte in the eyes, silently thanking her, if Lexa did not get the chance.  She took up position next to Lotte, ready to defend the children until the rest of her guards came, or they were all killed, whichever came first.

The gears of the lift howled into service.  The three warriors in the room tensed. Lexa adjusted her grip on her sword.  The lift ground down to some lower floor, paused briefly, and labored its way back up.  It arrived, and heavy boots hammered the floor the floor, splitting between Lexa’s chambers and the children’s.  She saw a cluster of guards come into view and silently thanked the gods both Klark’s and her own.

Lexa relaxed, but Lotte remained in her crouch, eying the guards warily.  Lexa searched the faces for those who had been stationed at her quarters, but they were absent.  Their captain barked orders to sweep the area and provide protection to Heda and her family. Lexa stood back up, sheathing her weapon.  “Come on,  _ ai goufas _ , come to me.  Are any of you hurt?” 

[my children]

“No, Heda,” Anya spoke for them all.  “Lotte took care of most of them. That one’s mine.”

“I see that,” Lexa replied, fighting to keep the terror out of her voice.  “Today is a very special day, and I couldn’t be prouder. We’ll have your ceremony tomorrow morning.”

Anya puffed up, only wilting a little when Lexa narrowed her eyes and cocked an eyebrow.  Lexa took Jasper into her arms, who was shockingly quiet, given the chaos. Then again, he’d always been a quiet toddler.  She herded the cluster of small children towards the door.

Lotte straightened to follow them, a small hiss escaping her lips.  Lexa glanced over at her, noting that Lotte’s injuries extended beyond the nasty side wound, and that Lotte was doing a masterful job at ignoring them.  “Lotte, with us.” Lotte’s eyes flicked down to Lexa’s lips for further instruction. “I want Abby to have a look at your side.”

“Abby?”

Tugging on Lotte’s arm, Jacob interjected, “Yeah!  She’s this amazing healer from the new clan who came here to teach us about better healing.  Even Uncle Galen is learning new things.”

Lotte arched her eyebrows at Lexa, “The new clan?”

“This was supposed to be a conversation I was having, first with Klark, and then with all of the Skaiyongon sept.  About two lunes ago, a nomadic people wandered into our lands, seeking refuge in Polis. That’s I’m prepared to discuss, before my conversation with Klark, except to say that they have been extremely helpful.  Less talking, more walking, everyone.”

Lexa shepherded her brood, Abby’s youngest, and Klark’s bodyguard down the hallway.  She could see Lotte working through the likelihood that this Abby from a new clan could possibly be Abby kom Skaikru, Counselor of her childhood.  Meanwhile, Jacob was giving a blow by blow of the fight in their room. Lexa found her thoughts drifting. She wasn’t ready to hear how close all of her remaining children had come to being murdered in their beds.  She was roused from her thoughts as she saw Klark explode out of the door to Lexa’s quarters and charge towards her family. She dropped to her knees and enveloped Jacob and Anya into a large hug. Lexa looked over Klark’s shoulder at the blood soaking the back of her shirt.  Lotte’s brows furrowed.

Galen jogged down the hall with the next wave of guards.  He glanced at the cluster of people in various stages of health, focusing first on Heda, and then the children.  He gestured towards Lexa’s quarters, placing his hand on his sister’s back and guiding the group in that direction. Lotte stumbled over one of the bodies in the doorway, and Galen immediately reached out to steady her, before she sagged to the ground.  

Pausing to the left of the doorway to thoroughly examine her room, Lexa noted that Abby was conspicuously absent.  She looked at Jacob and nodded in the direction of the furniture. Jacob took the hint and the children arranged themselves on to her dark pig’s leather couch.  Klark grabbed Lexa’s maple desk chair, and turned it backwards so that she could sit with them without further wounding herself. She rested her chin atop battered hands.

Lexa purposefully strode towards the armoire, fairly certain that Abby was still in there, too terrified to come out.  On the way, she settled Jasper in the crib along the back wall, just too the right of the windows. The handle on the mahogany door to the armoire was sheared, evidence that one of the assassins had tried and failed to tear open the doors.  Lexa gently coaxed through the thick wood, “It’s safe to come out now. They’re all dead.”

The door cracked and an eyeball appeared in the gap.  Abby assessed the situation. Lexa stepped to the side  Abby slowly eased her way out, eyes darting around the room, taking in the corpses and cluster of healers with Lotte in Lexa’s doorway, before landing on her younger daughter.

Lexa patted her on the shoulder.  “Mara’s fine. I checked. I need you to take over for my brother with Lotte, who will, in turn, take care of Wanheda.  Are you able to do that?”

“Mara.  Where is she?  Is she-”

“She’s fine.”  Lexa repeated, runing her hands up and down Abby’s biceps.  “Right over by the bookshelf with Jacob, safe and sound.”

Abby exhaled and twitched in Mara’s direction, eyes tearing up as she fought all impulse to rush over and examine for wounds.  Instead, she nodded grimly to Lexa, and picked her way over to Lotte. Lexa recognized this: she, too, had tamped all emotion down to the bottom of her soul to just to keep functioning in a particularly bloody battle.

Rapidly recruiting two of the brawnier guards to help get Lotte situated on Lexa’s bed, Abby swept the furs to the floor to give them room to work.  The guards looked at Lexa in alarm, but Lexa waived them off. Lotte’s life was more important than her bedding. In the meantime, Galen went to work stitching up Klark’s back.  She stared at the ground, lost in thought. Jacob and Mara had moved to her bookshelf, squabbling over what to read. Looking at them drew Lexa’s ire.

She tromped over to Klark and glared until Klark met her gaze.  She crouched down, and leaned into Klark so that Klark would have a good view of her signs.  Lexa’s hands flew violently through a steady stream of gestures.  _ “Why would you leave the kids with Lotte and come after me?  Why not the other way around?” _

_ “Because you’re the Commander.  Your survival is my priority.” _

_ “They are our children,”  _ Lexa’s horror shone plainly on her face.   _ “They’re supposed to matter more than us.” _

_ “They do matter, more than us together, more than me.  More, even, than ‘Lexa.’ But they can’t matter more than the Commander.  The Commander always has to come first. You taught me that yourself. If I’d left you, it would be treason.  If I’d left you, the kids wouldn’t have either of us. _ ”

Lexa’s fingers signed heatedly.   _ “Treason be damned.  I say it’s not treason, so it’s not treason.” _

_ “Then tell your people that ahead of time,”  _ Klark’s eyes squinting, her mouth and nose scrunched,  _ “and next time, I’ll go for the damned kids.  You can’t tell people it’s not treason if you’re dead.” _

Lexa glanced around.   The guards busied themselves with clearing the corpses from the room before they began to stink.  Lotte was arguing with the healers, most likely wanting to be certain that Klark was safe before allowing them to patch her back up.  Jacob was angling strongly in favor of a leather-bound copy of  _ The Hobbit _ , whereas Mara was much more interested in  _ Treasure Island _ . Anya waited quietly on the end next to Klark.  Deciding she was too angry to join her family, Lexa stormed over to her half-finished game of go, and sullenly plunked down a few stones.  

White stones quickly enveloped the black.  She couldn’t help but check over her shoulder, watching Klark out of the corner of her eye.  The Queen of the Ice Nation was staring out the window at Polis, below. Galen was in the midst of abandoning sutures for staples, having decided that the wound was too long to stitch.  He grabbed the battered gun they’d found in Mount Weather’s medical unit, punching the staples in as gently as he could.

Abby was working fervently on Lotte.  She barked commands with authority at the healers who were in the process of joining her.  Her brother’s assistant, Carneg, rushed over to assess Lexa’s trivial injuries. She refused to be waived off, however, insisting on running her careful fingers over Heda’s exposed skin and the chinks in her armor, assessing for any damage Lexa was too stubborn to report.   She tried to focus on Carneg’s investigation, but her eyes kept finding Klark. Fury still burned in her belly, but love seeped in, as well.

Klark eyed the children huddled around Jacob on the couch.  In an attempt at compromise, Jacob had taken his favorite pre-war book, an art book of paintings from the Louvre, and was telling a story using the pictures.  Jacob fought against sleep while Mara and Anya’s eyes drooped. 

Having finished stapling Klark’s wound shut, Galen squabbled with her.  Klark was insisting on assisting him with Lotte’s wounds, if Lexa had to wager.   The servants focused on cleaning up after the removal of the final body, mopping up blood and rolling up carpets to be cleaned later.  Against every ounce of pride, Lexa forced her feet back across the room. Klark was back to staring miserably at their children. Lexa sighed.  Klark had known exactly what she was sacrificing when she came for Lexa, and now she was busy shredding her insides for that judgment call, even though all the former Commanders were screaming in the back of Lexa’s skull that it had been the right one.  Lexa told them exactly where they could go.

Klark couldn’t even meet Lexa’s gaze.  Lexa knelt down in front of her and leaned her forehead against Klark’s.  Shucking her leather gloves off and took Klark’s cheeks in her hands. “My breeze between the branches, I’m still angry at you.  That doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop loving you. Hey, ‘maybe there will come a day, we’ll belong to only ourselves.’”

It was a prayer they whispered every time a thing like this happened.  Lexa silently wondered at what point she’d started caring more about her personal happiness than the happiness of her people. Her heart knew: the day they’d buried their oldest, the day she realized what it really meant to choose.  The loss of Kostia had bent her resolve, the loss of Mica had broken it. This was why the Fleimkeepa had told her love was weakness, a chorus of small voices whispered and her shoulders sagged with extra weight.

_ “Next time this happens,” _ Lexa indicated,  _ “I’m done.  They can take the joken flame and we’re going to live with your friends in the Deazon Wandakru.” _  They snuggled together, Klark’s arms encircling Lexa’s shoulders, Lexa resting an ear on Klark’s collarbone.  She looked out the window, at the clouds slithering over the waxing gibbous moon. Klark’s breath was warm at the base of her neck.  

 

“A nice dream,” Klark whispered.

Lexa reached a hand back so that Klark could see it and quickly signed,  _ “Please, I need to hear it again.” _

Tears leached into Klark’s voice.  “Beatriz would make a huge tent, big enough for all of us to sleep in.  Galen and I would teach Jacob and  _ Wandakru _ children to heal, because your brother’s coming with us, whether he likes it or not.  You’ll train Anya to hunt, taking the horses out with their parties for elk and lions. Jasper will get older, figure out what he’s good at, and apprentice at making, I don’t know, pottery?  I’d take you out to the Kes-Barr Oasis, and feed you prickly pears and thistle flowers. We’d get ridiculously drunk on honey wine, and make wild, crazy love. The Kongeda won’t touch us, because they’re too scared of the Dead Zone’s curse.”

Lexa closed her eyes and let hope wash over her.  She could smell the Scarlet Beeblossom flowers native to the oasis.  Abby’s footsteps vibrated on the concrete, rousing Lexa from her drowsy fantasy.  “Excuse me,” Abby said, “but if you don’t mind, I’m going to get Mara and head back to my quarters.”

Klark’s head raised sleepily at the same time as Lexa was lifting hers, Lexa’s hair grazing Klark’s crooked nose, broken in some long gone battle, in a near miss. Lexa looked over at the children, who had fallen asleep piled atop Jacob.  Klark’s eye went to the new speaker, in order to properly read her lips. Klark wheezed for a moment, blinking rapidly, before gaping openly at her mother, eye large and jaw slack.

Lexa panicked, realizing that she hadn’t properly prepared either person for this moment.  Her nightmares featured a very similar scenario for the week leading up to S'wain, fearing that she might do or say something minor to totally ruin their reunion.  Unfortunately, this sailed far past minor and into catastrophic territory. Both would be furious, and Abby was nowhere near ready to meet the person her daughter had evolved into.  Lexa swallowed heavily and Klark gasped for air, this moment having rendered two of the greatest public speakers alive completely speechless.

This had never happened before.  Not in classes with Titus. Not at the godforsaken conclave.  Not even the first time she addressed the army defending Polis in the war against the Ice Nation.  Lexa always knew what to say, and now that it was important to both her wife and mother-in-law, she couldn’t think of a single word, mouth opening and closing like a dying lake trout.  Abby squinted, fawn colored irises darting back and forth between them, obviously trying to work out what was happening. Klark found her voice first, and Lexa had never heard her sound so small and helpless. 

“Mom?"


	3. Chapter 2: Abby

Chapter 2: Abby

 

Abby made a loop with the thread and pulled to knot the suture, and snipped off the tail as she finished stitching Wanheda’s young bodyguard’s abdominal wound.  She carefully removed the crude rubber gloves worn during surgical procedures, dropping them into the waste container. One of her assistants held out a basin of fresh water with a towel.  Soaping her hands for a moment before submerging them into the water, she watched the blood tainted soap from her leech into the clean water, before drying with the towel. The kid would make it, provided she didn’t contract any number of nasty infections.  Turning towards the small cluster of people surrounding her child, she left Galen to clean up.

Exhaustion washed over her body.  Two court summons to the main hall, one at midnight, seated for ages in those ridiculously uncomfortable chairs, followed by almost being cleaved in two by the group of assassins, also followed by an emergency surgery.  At this point, she wasn’t sure she’d make it all the way to Mara’s bed to tuck her in, let alone her own. However, she would be damned if she left her remaining daughter in this death chamber for a second longer than she absolutely had to.  Unfortunately, her daughter appeared to have fallen fast asleep on her little friend’s shoulder.

Heda Lexa looked thoroughly drained, leaning up against her equally weary-looking wife.  Under normal circumstances, Heda cut a terrifying figure. In public, she was like something out of a Greek myth, tall and angular, with penetrating green eyes, just oozing heroic presence.  However, when it was just Abby and Lexa, with or without her brother Galen, she was awkward and endearing, as if a legend was all she knew how to be. 

Wanheda was frightening in a completely different sense.  The eyepatch, cauliflower ear, and scarification on her face, coupled with the chiseled expression made Abby’s belly shiver.  Wanheda fit more within the Norse myths, bleak and fierce. She wore the title of Commander of Death like a chainmail shirt. Abby wondered if she, too, had a softer side outside of the public eye.

That being said, neither of them compared to the young woman she’d just sewn up.  Looking at her was like looking at an alien species, one whose existence was so far outside of human understanding that a person couldn’t predict which of her decisions might bring about great harm by a difference in priorities.   Abby noticed evidence of severe torture on the young bodyguard’s pale skin while assessing the extent of her injuries, no doubt what contributed to that alarming clinical detachment.

Abby neared the Imperial Family, watching Wanheda speak tenderly into Heda Lexa’s ear.   She hated to interrupt, but she needed to capture their attention so that she could bring Mara home.  “Excuse me,” Abby said, “but if you don’t mind, I’m going to get Mara and head back to my quarters.”

The couple came within a hair’s breadth of clashing heads, before settling their eyes on her.  Heda looked absolutely panicked, which confused Abby. Was she worried that Abby would be mad about the coup attempt?  Because,if Abby was being completely honest with herself, she was absolutely furious, but not at Heda. Lexa had been nothing but forthcoming about the perils that her family, and those around them, faced.  The blonde’s eye went immediately to Abby’s mouth, and Abby was reminded that the woman was deaf, and needed to read her lips. 

Abby moved her fingers to try out a couple of basic signs, but nothing she’d learned was going to be particularly helpful in this instance.  Maybe picking up a few more signs wouldn’t be the worst idea, if she was going to continue to serve as an ambassador, and their children continued to be friends.  Lexa had been after her to learn almost immediately after their arrival. It had led her to believe that the hearing loss was much more prevalent among the grounders than it actually was.   She used the signs for  _ “Mara come with me,”  _ but the response was not what she expected.

_Oh no,_  she thought in a panic.

It became obvious: the blonde’s shocked expression, coupled with Lexa’s guilt and fear meant that whatever Abby had said must have been horrifically offensive.  Her hands twitched. How to say I’m sorry? Or any apology, really? But Wanheda wasn’t looking at her hands. Abby furrowed her brows. And then the last thing she had ever, in all the stars, thought to hear again dropped out of the monarch’s mouth.

“Mom?”

The question dangled in the air.  Abby craned her neck to either side, to see who was coming up behind her, because that was the only possible explanation.  The sole person approaching them was Galen, joining them after cleaning up the spent medical supplies. What was happening?  

She heard a chair creak, and turned to see Wanheda had gotten to her feet, continuing to appear stunned.  Abby internally winced at the thick, pale scars of wars long gone covering her chiseled deltoids, biceps, forearms and abdominal muscles, dipping beneath the drawstring waistband.  In layman’s terms, the kid was a mess: too much war, too young. Abby had observed at a routine physical, that her wife had the same problem.

Wanheda shook her head, making a dusting motion on her baggy powder blue woolen trousers with the palms of her scarred hands.  Abruptly, she realized that she was clad in only her chest bindings from the waste up. She reached down to grab her bloody shirt, before deciding it was too soiled and straightening back up.

Galen’s voice soared over Abby’s shoulder, “Oh, for the love of-  Lexa! We talked about this. You were supposed to-”

Wanheda’s eyes squinted, brows crowding towards the bridge of her nose, and lips pinched in a tense frown.  “You knew? Both of you?”

Galen arched his eyebrows, pointed at the sleeping children, and jerked his head in the direction of the door.  Before Lexa could find her footing, Wanheda seized her wrist and hauled her out into the hallway. Galen gently took Abby’s wrist and guided her to the opposite end of the room.  “Here, my dear, take a seat. This is going to be messy.”

“I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m too tired to make sense of it.  Please, just let me take my daughter and we can talk about whatever this is after they’ve fought it out and I’ve gotten some sleep.”

The young healer laughed softly.  “I wish that could be possible, but it has to be now.  My sister has seen to that. I told her-”

Before he could go any further, raised voices resounded down the hall.  They echoed with wounded fury, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.  The couple must have gone the children’s room for their fight. Galen cocked his narrow head, scratching absently at fiery scruff on his cheek.  His green eyes shot up as he thoroughly rolled them.  He muttered under his breath, “If she had just listened…”

And with that, was a chilling silence.  A worried expression settled onto Galen’s face, and he rose, half turning towards the door, as if he couldn’t decide whether to go check on them or not.  Heavy footfalls slammed into the stone floor and Wanheda rounded the corner, pausing in the entryway to look back at the children, before finding Abby in her chair.  She had procured a y-neck shirt to replace the bloodied loose linen. She glared at Galen. The boy had the good sense to look like a guilty puppy. “Go.” Wanheda commanded.  “Grab some extra guards on the way. She’s bunking with you.”

“One night on my couch won’t be so bad...”

Wanheda squinted her eye further.  “You knew.”

“Or, you know, forever.”  Galen turned and hastened from the room.

Just like that, she was alone with the most terrifying person she’d ever met.  The young woman took a moment to compose herself, running through what Abby recognized to be a breathing exercise patterned like one common amongst those who came to meditate at the base of the Sacred Tree on the Ark.  She sighed heavily and reached up to remove her eye patch before pocketing it in what was most likely a failed attempt to look less intimidating. While the wound had been wicked, what Abby found to be most interesting was the fact that the skin showed evidence of grafts to fill the socket, a more advanced sequence of techniques than she was aware of in Grounder medicine.  Odd.

Wanheda’s face had softened dramatically.  Abby realized that it was as much a mask as Lexa’s.  She was covered in a pastiche of unspeakable violence, and yet kindness still radiated from her.  Her eye hungered, a longing for connection inscribed on her face like runes on a clay tablet. It was lonely to be a leader, and if she understood Grounder culture correctly, even more so for someone in Heda or Wanheda’s position.  It made all the sense in the world that the two of them would be drawn to each other. Abby just couldn’t figure out why they felt so strongly linked to her. Both Heda and Wanheda bared their underbelly around Abby, and while she was honored, she was also very confused.

Fat tears rolled down Wanheda’s cheek.   She dropped her hands to her side and took a few steps forward, before stopping, and rushing forward in a jerky run, until she was directly in front of Abby.  Candle flames flickered as she flew past them. Her hands reached for Abby’s elbows, before pulling back. Wanheda’s gaze roamed everywhere but the woman across from her.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t.”  A bruised expression descended on the young woman’s face.  “But if half of what Heda has says about you is true, I wish I did.”

Wanheda sniffled as she reached into her pocket for a handkerchief to dab at her eye.  Sighing heavily, she clasped the cuff of her sleeve, extending her arm while pulling it back to the bottom edge of her elbow.   It revealed two thin woven leather bands and a chunky bangle encircling her wrist. The bracelet consisted of a thin, metallic rectangular box secured to two sturdy titanium bands.  A logo of a triskelion surrounded by twelve stars was etched onto a black square at the center of the box. Abby’s heart stopped. The wristband may have stopped transmitting more than a decade ago, resigned to mere decoration, but the message couldn’t be clearer; Clarke was alive.  Clarke was here.   As if to provide further proof, the young woman bent back her right ear, revealing a small silver scar, and pulled the waist of her trousers at her hip slightly, exposing another, equally old scar.

Abby wasn’t aware of moving, but suddenly she was standing there, her baby in her arms, face buried into the space between Clarke’s shoulder blade and jawline.  She could feel her older daughter’s strangled sobs as the embrace moved with her stuttering lungs. Abby wept evenly, grief and loss cascading out. Clarke smelled of sweat, blood, and earth, a dramatic difference from the sterile antibacterial soap of the Ark.  Abby lost track of how long they remained in each other’s embrace, soaking up the fact that they were here, together, today.

Eventually, Abby pulled back.  She cupped Clarke’s cheeks in her hands, eyes roaming over every scar and wound.  She felt sick. It was agonizingly obvious that Clarke had led a difficult life, nothing that any parent wishes for their child.  Regret gnawed at her stomach lining, triggering Abby’s reflux.

Clarke was conducting her own examination, scrutinizing the skin clinging tightly to Abby’s bones, streaks of brown in otherwise gray hair, and the dark circles under her eyes.  Clarke spoke first, “How are you?”

Abby struggled with an answer.  Clarke studied Abby’s lips.

“I’m good, now.  It’s been hard, but here is good,” Abby’s tears followed the tracks laid out by their predecessors.  “What about you?”

“I’m good, too.  I can’t even tell you how much I’ve missed you.  Wished you were here for, well, almost everything.  Apparently Lexa introduced you to my babies.”

Sudden clarity came.  Anya was the spitting image of Clarke because she was Clarke’s.  Jacob had to be named after her late husband. Jasper must have been named after Jasper Jordan.  Abby felt very stupid. It was so obvious.

She took a step back and looked over Clarke’s left shoulder at the cluster of kids, realizing that they were her grandchildren.   _ I have grandchildren. _  Anya snuggled closer to Mara in her sleep.  How could she tell Clarke about Mara in a way that wouldn’t leave her feeling like she’d been replaced?

“They’re beautiful children.”

The corners of Clarke’s mouth turned up in a soft smile.  Thank you.”

Abby massaged the webbing between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand.  She ventured forth with a wobbly voice. “You should know, that girl with the brown hair, passed out on Anya’s shoulder?  Her name is Mara,” Abby inhaled deeply. “And she is your half sister.”

Clarke’s eyelid flew open, eyebrows launching towards the top of her forehead.  Clarke chewed at a chapped corner of her lip. Abby tried to add up her eye, eyebrows, mouth, and a thousand other cues, but Clarke’s tells were subtle, and had changed since she was small.  She looked back and forth between Mara and Abby, watching keenly to see what Abby might say next.

“We were off of the Ark, finally free of the One Child Mandate, not knowing if there were any others alive.  Once we set up camp and established a home base, I removed the implants from anyone who would be willing to try.  It was time to rebuild the human race. Three years later, I got involved with someone, and we decided to start a family together.”

Clarke looked dismayed.  Oh. Not only had she replaced Clarke, she had replaced Clarke’s father.  Of course, Clarke would be upset. She couldn’t imagine how angry Clarke would be once she found out it was the man who had lobbied ardently for her father’s death and seen to her own imprisonment.

“I’m not with him anymore.  It didn’t work out. By then, I was pregnant with Mara. “ Abby teared up again.

Clarke leaned back on her left leg and folded her arms across her chest.  “Who’s the father?”

“Marcus Kane.”

“That was not who I expected.  You’re not together anymore?”

“No.  We were much better friends and colleagues, although I must say that he is a fantastic father.  Not that he could, in any way, replace yours…”

“You can tell me the truth.  It’s been more than a decade.  You are allowed to love whomever you like.”  Clarke’s face initially appeared neutral. However, a combination of disappointment, grief, and anger flashed across her face, so subtle that she almost missed it.  It was gone almost as soon as it emerged.

“I am. You were dead.  Your father was dead. I was two thousand miles away from Mount Weather, and any clues that might tell me what happened to you.  I found comfort with him for a time, but, the reality is, we didn’t really love each other in the way couples are supposed to. He is a fine parent to Mara and a good friend.  He could never be your father.”

Clarke’s eyebrows mashed together when Abby mentioned her father.

“I see Wells finally told you the truth.”  Abby’s shoulders sagged.

“No.  An old friend put it together for me.  Not before Wells died, though. It is a great regret of mine that he was killed before I had a chance to apologize to him.”

“Clarke, I’m so very sorry.”

“You don’t have to be.  You did it because you had to.  He was going to tell a large number of people with limited resources trapped in an enclosed space that said enclosure was about to run out of air.  People would have rioted. Sometimes good leaders must make impossible choices, and I’m sorry for how I treated you when I failed to realize that. You had to, for the sake of your people.”

Clarke’s voice was cold, the repetition reeking of a mantra, “you had to,” most likely whispered over and over in the back of her mind, lying under layers of furs, candles extinguished for the night.  Her right hand twitched. Abby’s eyes were once again drawn to Clarke’s crown. Wanheda. What had her daughter done?

A large yawn accompanied by a loud crack from Clarke’s jaw interrupted anything Abby might be trying to say, signaling that both of them should probably go to bed.  She wanted to know everything: how they’d survived, why they hadn’t called back, where they’d been, what had happened since. She was particularly interested in this Azplana business.  However, Clarke wasn’t going anywhere until WinSol, two months from now, spending the time in between negotiating trade and resolving conflicts with other clans. That conversation could wait.

“I should let you get to sleep,” Abby said.

Clarke nodded and bowed her head in Abby’s direction.  “Good night, Ambassador Griffin kom Skaikru.”

Abby felt conflict wriggling in her belly at the chilly formality.  “Good night, sweetheart.”

Clarke turned stiffly and walked brusquely to the door.  She froze in the middle of the frame and turned back to her mother.  Her eye sought out Abby’s. “I do love you, you know. And I’m glad you’re alive.”

Clarke disappeared around the corner before Abby could formulate a proper response.   She stood alone for a moment, scanning the wreckage of Lexa’s living quarters, speechless.  Finally, she woodenly walked over to the children, sinking into the chair she had been reading in and closing her eyes, losing herself in a dreamless sleep.

The sun dipped below the Polis walls the following evening, coloring the port city erected from the ruins of Old World Annapolis and the bay beyond it in a riot of pinks, oranges, and purples, before fading to the torchlight overtaking the large metropolis.  Bonfires popped up from neighborhood to neighborhood, around which revelers would gather for the Feast of S’Wain, a celebration of the harvest, and the life that death makes possible. Citizens of the Kongeda would gather for one final lavish party before the winter, wearing bright masks and costumes and eating until they were sick.  The largest and most extravagant of these celebrations took place in the courtyard at the base of the Promheda Tower, where Heda, important dignitaries, and a selection of commoners chosen randomly every year in a raffle assembled around a ritual sacrifice of a two-headed cow one face to look back on life, the other forward to death, performed by the Flamekeipers.  A decadent feast, accompanied by music, dancing, storytelling, and pit fights immediately followed the ceremony.

Heda and Wanheda were seated at a large table overflowing with the bounty of the hunt and harvest atop a dais near blaze in the center of the courtyards.  Their children were to directly the right and advisors to the left. The whole courtyard was ringed by tables for the clan leadership, advisors and chieftains seated with their own people next to clans they had petitioned to sit next to in the hopes of strengthening alliances.  While Heda ultimately had say in who sat near who, she had a general policy of honoring requests, as long as doing so did not threaten the stability of the empire. Peasants and minor aristocracy filled the tables behind the leadership, feasting together without regard to station.  To the right of the fire, a fighting pit had been constructed to allow warriors to challenge each other for glory, individual and clan, as well as a sizeable purse. At the moment, Octavia, general of the Sky Children sept of the Ice Nation had kicked the feet right out from underneath a towering pugilist from a minor family of the Rock Line Clan.  The crowd of peasants, seated behind Abby and craning to see the bout, let loose a thundering roar. Octavia was the clear favorite amongst the spectators.

Abby brooded quietly about the fact that Clarke had been too busy to have a conversation of any length, preparing for the festival.  She stared at the ornate filigree on the rim of the empty silver plate on the heavy oak table in front of her. The thick smoke from the bonfires in the center of the festival grounds invaded her nostrils.  Giant roasted legs of beef, goat, and boar overtook the table surrounding her. To her right was a heavy platter of plump turkey wings on a bed of cabbage leaves. Bowls of herbed carrots, buttery peas, and smoky greens filled in most of the gaps.  Two ears of corn had rolled off of their tray in the direction of Abby’s plate, butter and rust colored paprika staining the yellow linen tablecloth. She adjusted her leather mask, dyed a deep purple, with a smattering of stars embossed, then painted onto it.   Chancellor Marcus Kane reached across the corn to snag a fluffy roll from its basket.

Abby turned to Marcus.  He was no longer her lover, but he remained her compass when she felt like she was coming unmoored.  He was taking a long pull of his wine as a small rivulet of red snaked down his chin, leaking from the corner of his mouth.  He rapidly set down his simple clay goblet and swiped the back of his hand over his clean-shaven chin, taking the wine with it.  His mask was simple, a red leather piece that hugged the bridge of his nose and cheeks, ending at the tip of his long nose. His dark chin-length hair was swept away from his face in a short half ponytail.  He smiled at Abby and gently patted her shoulder with his craggy hand, silently inviting her to enjoy the festivities. Abby shook her head.

“You see the Ice Queen over there?”  Abby asked.

“Yes.  Her appearance does seem to match her reputation.  I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of her blade.”

“That’s Clarke.”

Kane very thoroughly cleared his throat and picked actively at ratty fingernails.  He squinted his eyes, trying to reconcile the adolescent face he knew with the warrior’s countenance, obscured by a mask and cloak garment made from the head and pelt of a wolf.  He sat back in his seat, eyes darting between the bored-looking monarch and the Sky People’s anxious ambassador.

“Are you sure?”

“She was there when the assassins came.  I went to get Mara to come to bed and she recognized me.  Called me ‘Mom.’ Was wearing one of the wristbands as a bracelet.  Had that scar behind her ear and the one on her hip.”

“Are you certain about the scars?”

“I damned well stitched them myself.  I know my child’s scars.”

“Well, that would certainly explain her.”  Marcus changed gears, gesturing to Anya, who was trying her best to match her mother’s expression.

“Marcus, I didn’t recognize my own daughter!”

“You can’t be blamed for that.  She’s made a few… adjustments…”

“It shouldn’t matter.”

“Abby, you had no reason to believe Clarke was alive, let alone a reigning monarch of the largest territory in an empire of roughly a million people.  What part of Clarke’s life on the Ark says ‘Commander of Death’ by age twenty-five?”

“I can’t see her as commander of anything, let alone death.  The last time I visited her, she was drawing flowers and trees on the floor of her prison cell.”

“Do we even know how she came by the nickname?  It could be something ironic or a joke.” But Marcus’s furrowed brows and grim countenance indicated that he wasn’t buying his own line.  Abby mechanically reached for an apple from the dwindling fruit basket at Marcus’s elbow, setting it in the center of her plate, uneaten.

They heard raucous laughter to Abby’s right.  An elderly woman, weathered and wizened with bronze colored, leathery skin and clever blue eyes, cackled with a friendly smile.  She shifted her mask of lizard scales up to the top of her head with bony fingers, so that she could get a better view of them. “You must be the new clan.”

Abby blinked for a moment, trying to recall whose chieftain this was.  Something about a desert came filtering back into her brain. Marcus reached around Abby, extending his hand in friendship, recognizing that she was struggling to do her job.  “Chancellor Marcus Kane kom Skaikru. And this is our ambassador, Dr. Abby Griffin kom Skaikru.”

“Griffin.  Kom Skaikru.”  She squinted her eyes together shrewdly, irises flicking up and down, examining Abby in great detail.  She made a soft humming noise for a moment, nodding and reaching for Kane’s hand. “I am Brighid, Chieftain of the Dezone Wandakru.  Wanheda Klarke is family to me and mine. You, I take it, must be her mother. Bit of a shock?”

Abby nodded.

“All this lot’ll tell you about is her bloody battles.  Of glorious peace bought with the lives of warriors and peasants alike.  I doubt any of those warriors with dried goat udder where their common sense should be would bring up the bloodless end of a centuries-old feud with my people, those the Twelve Clans had cast out to the desert as mere babes.  A practice which she spent great political capital to end. They won’t think to mention making us the Thirteenth Clan, giving us a spot at a table we’d never been welcome at. Or achieving the end of Jus Drein, Jus Daun. The truth is, all Heda Lexa gave the Kongeda was stability.  Wanheda Klark gave them hope. Say what you will about her ascent to power, she has done truly great things with it.”

“Jus Drein, Jus Daun?”  Abby asked.

“Disgusting practice.  ‘Blood Must Have Blood.’ The intent was for the punishment to fit the crime.  Instead, it turned into an excuse to cut people until the bled out or inflict one painful method of execution after another for each life taken until they succumbed to their wounds.  It was vengeance, not justice.”

“That’s barbaric!”  Abby placed her fingers over her mouth.

Marcus paled, setting down his fork.  “And hurtling people out an airlock for stealing medicine for their sick children isn’t?  Our hands are far from clean. Given the givens, I’m guessing that Wanheda isn’t terribly popular among more conservative circles.”

“No.  They keep trying to kill her.  Or rebelling, and then trying to kill her.”

“That sounds inconvenient,”  Marcus said. “An-”

Abby interrupted before Marcus could continue.  “Is that what happened last night?”

“Possibly?”  Brighid took a bite of greens, chewing thoughtfully.  Setting her fork down on the edge of her plate, she steepled her hands in front of her.  “Rumors have been flying all day, but this is the first hint that any of them might be true.”  

Abby slammed her mouth shut.  She hadn’t considered that Heda, or Wanheda for that matter, might not want news of that getting out.  She felt panic rising, as her anxiety latched onto the possibility that she might have inadvertently exposed her daughter to further harm.

“Don’t worry yourself.  I won’t say anything. Klarke and the kids mean the world to me.  Now,” Birghid gestured to Kane, “This handsome young lad is going to take me out for a spin around the bonfire, before my joints rot in my chair.”

Marcus rose to oblige and stepped over to pull out the Wandakru woman’s chair.  She rose and grabbed Marcus’s hand, bounding nimbly over to join the other dancers.  Soon, she was leading Marcus in a wild paso doble. His face occasionally slipped into panic as he struggled to keep up.

While Marcus was dusting off his old dance moves, Abby noticed Clarke slipping quietly out of her seat.  Bowing at the waist, she offered Lexa an open palm. Lexa smiled one of the only genuine smiles Abby had ever seen from her and clasped the offered hand.  Clarke tugged in the direction of the bonfire. Lexa took a dramatic slug from her wine cup and smashed in on the ground. The Ice Nation and Trikru revelers whooped loudly and more people rushed the packed earth next to the fire to join the dance.  Clarke forcefully pulled Lexa in until their bodies were flush, looping her hands around Lexa’s neck. Lexa situated her hands at Clarke’s waist as the two tried to move to the rhythm. Clarke nodded her head in time with the bodhran and Lexa matched her movement.  For a brief moment, Abby saw them as any normal couple enjoying a fall festival, and not two of the most powerful people alive.

Jacob, Mara, and even Anya twirled in front of their seats.  Jacob and Mara linked arms and spun each other around, until they lurched to a stop, pitching to their knees and giggling.  Anya skipped circles around them, carefully matching all of her movements to the beat of the drums. Galen, she noted, had disappeared, most likely on the other side of the bonfire.  Abby reached for more food, determined to eat her feelings, as she lacked a dance partner or anyone to talk to, having been abandoned in favor of wild merriment.

Some time later, Abby picked quietly at the golden skin of a lukewarm, half-eaten turkey wing.  She crumbled a roasted blade of rosemary between her fingers. While she was grappling with her new existential crisis, she was in no mood to attend a party.  She enviously watched Marcus dip Birghid in his arms. She didn’t miss being with him. That comet had passed a long time ago. Rather, she missed being with someone.  It had been five years since the last person had asked her to dance. Realizing that Mara was taken care of for the night, she poured herself a full goblet of wine. If she couldn’t dance, she could sulk into her cups.

It was midway through her third helping of a rich red, tinged with elderberry, that a solitary figure approached her table.  She was of average height, but sleight, walking with a pronounced limp. She wore a black tricorn hat, with grey trim, at a jaunty angle, a charcoal frock coat, and pale grey trousers tucked into knee-length black boots with floppy cuffs.  An intricate brace encased her weak leg, over her pants. Her face was covered, all but her mouth and chin, with a finely detailed, ebony feathered bird mask, complete with shiny black beak. Dark eyes, peering out of the holes in the mask, locked with Abby’s, and she found herself captivated.  The reveller bowed brusquely and extended her hand, silently asking Abby to dance. 

_ Why the Hell not? _  Abby asked herself while standing, walking around the end of the table, and accepting the rough-skinned hand.  She noted that it was lacking the index finger, while the middle finger and thumb were both stubs. The stranger’s chin was free of wrinkles and the long black hair spilling out of the back of her hat indicated that this person, whomever they were, was most likely ages younger than her.  However, a dance or two certainly wouldn’t hurt.

The band struck up a reel, the one dance Skaikru shared with the rest of the Kongeda, and her partner hopped in line across from her.  Abby stepped forward towards the stranger, meeting in the middle and curtsying to the young woman’s bow. They clasped left hands, turning in a circle, then clasped right to do the same, before reeling down the line.  Forming an arch with their arms, everyone ducked low to pass beneath, before re-forming their two lines. The stranger flashed a flirtatious smirk and a wink. Abby smiled coyly back.

The reel was followed by another song with a vigorous tempo plucked out frantically by the lute player in conjunction with deep pulsing drums.  Her partner cocked her head,  _ Another dance? _

Abby grinned and took her partner’s lead hand, placing her other on the shoulder of the other woman’s gray coat.  The jacket material was softer than it looked. Abby’s partner swept Abby along in her arms gracefully. They had to adjust their steps to the strangers uneven gait, but that didn’t prevent Abby from becoming caught up in the rhythm of their movement.

Jig bled into quadrille flowed into pavane.  Abby spun, dipped, and twirled until her lungs were heaving, and all she could think of was light and love and laughter.  The drums thrummed in her heart, as hope plucked the strings. 

The drums took a rest, leaving the viol, lute, double reed, and zither bare to ease into a slow number.  The masked woman pulled Abby in tighter, their chests barely touching. The right corner of her companion’s lips turned up, eyes sparkling impishly through the mask.  Breath rose as steam, flowing out of the other woman’s mouth, into her own. Abby shivered, having left her jacket on the back of her chair. Her partner abandoned waltz form to bring Abby in even closer. Abby draped her arms around her partner’s slender neck and rested her cheek against the younger woman’s wide collar.  Abby heard a contented noise rumble through the jacket’s cloth.

Her heart was thundering in its prison.  She sorely missed this, she decided. Her life desperately needed more dancing, more laughter, and, if she was being extremely honest, more sex.   She pulled back a little, just to take stock of where she could see this was most likely leading. Coal-black irises burned bright beneath the mask.  Abby dragged her fingers lightly along the nape of her partner’s neck. Her partner’s rib cage expanded in response and contracted. Youthful lips, a tiny scar dividing them, formed the polite question, “May I kiss you.”

The voice was light and soft, and oh-so-familiar, but Abby couldn’t place it.  Nor did she particularly care to, in this moment. She could worry about that later, preferably in her bedchamber, where masks and costumes would matter less than warm bodies and salty satisfaction.  She nodded her assent, and was pleased when her partner wasted no time maneuvering the mask’s beak past Abby’s ear and bringing their lips together. With the pressure, Abby could feel the other woman holding back, as she tried for a gentle kiss to initiate the intimate bargaining process.  To put it bluntly, Abby was too old for that nonsense.

Abby wasn’t afraid to let her need leak through, as she kissed her companion quite thoroughly. She was met with equal ferocity, and she let loose a sigh she didn’t realize she’d been holding for the better part of a decade.  Her companion clutched a handful of Abby’s shirt in one hand, massaging her scalp with the other. 

Suddenly, the younger woman wrenched away, pulling out of Abby’s arms.  “I’m sorry, I can’t. Not like this.”

Abby looked to her eyes to demystify this abrupt change, to find them brimming with tears.  Before Abby could say anything back, the young woman turned and fled, leaving Abby standing alone next to the snapping bonfire.

This was too much.  Nearly being assassinated, the business with Clarke, and now this bizarre rejection without explanation saturated Abby’s brain.  Abby turned away from the bonfire and found herself sobbing behind an evergreen hedge at the base of the tower without remembering a single step.   Her lungs labored and hot blood flooded the vessels in her face. She rested her forehead on her left knee, as she sat leaning back against the tower’s rough concrete.

The giant gloved hand of a tower guard forced its way through the thick shrubbery branches to offer a soft kerchief to clean up her face.  Abby accepted it, and managed a weak ‘Thank you’ as she scrubbed her cheeks and nose. The hand disappeared silently, as quickly as it had come.  The music wafted through the air to Abby’s ears. She groaned, standing up and swiping her trousers for mulch. With any luck, she could escape the noise in her room on the far side of the tower.

Abby slipped through the halls, meeting no one but the motionless guards standing ramrod straight at all entrances.  She took the stairs instead of the lift, as that amount of noise would be overwhelming at this point. She found her room dark and quiet, shedding her mask and clothing, and lighting thick white candles as she went, until she was in her bathroom. 

She came to a stop in front of her mirror.  She examined and critiqued every scar, mole and wrinkle, trying to understand what happened.  They hadn’t talked, so it wasn’t something she said. Despite not being the best dancer, she had kept up with the young woman.  She had a handful of natural blemishes, but she looked quite fetching for a woman of fifty. Her hair, while gray, still had a lovely, soft texture.  Her features were symmetrical. What had been the problem?

She sighed.  Probably some young adventurer who hadn’t realized how old her dance partner was until the firelight hit them just right.  Abby was eternally grateful for the masks, because it meant she didn’t have to worry about facing the kid the next day. With any luck, neither would recognize the other, and they could both go on about their lives in peace.

Abby rooted through her drawers for a pair of thick flannel pajamas she’d been saving for colder nights.  Once she had them situated, she flopped onto her bed and curled up underneath the down quilt. Sleep claimed her quickly, and she dreamed of Clarke executing a condemned man with a thousand cuts from a gleaming scythe and dark birds feasting on her own exposed heart, all without waking once.


	4. Chapter 3: Lotte

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I promise we will get to Raven's perspective next chapter, and I'm revising it now, so aiming for later this week.

Chapter 3: Lotte

 

Charlotte Eberhardt gon Skaiyongon Sept kom Azgeda lurched into the morgue, leaning heavily on her favorite glaive.  The Priest of Death’s workroom reeked of patchouli incense, the current strategy to mask the smell of corpses. Raven and Barth, the co-heads of the University of Engineering, had put their minds together to design a large refrigeration unit, but they were still scavenging for the necessary components from ruins far and near.  Until then, the bodies were stored in tarp lined oak shelves lining the walls, and the most important were packed with ice from the upper reaches of Azgeda. There were waist tall steel tables supporting the bodies that were currently being autopsied, all full after last night’s adventures. As things stood, the morgue went through large quantities of incense, the scent depending on how busy things were.  Patchouli meant that Greig, the Priest of Death was in over his head.

The findings from the Chief Investigator and Priest of Death concerning the nature of who the assassins from two nights ago were and what they were about would be presented, and Lotte was not going to miss it.  She slid along the wall until she came to a metal stool that was close enough to read the lips and see the signs of the discussion, while far enough away that she could blend into the environment without anybody noticing.  She was good at that. Carefully sitting down, Lotte leaned back against the bare concrete wall, using the glaive’s heft to steady herself on the tall stool, as her legs couldn’t touch the ground. There she remained, still as an algae pool, while the important people gathered over by the corpses.

She wondered, while she waited, if the roast panther had been any good at the feast last night.  It was difficult to prepare, but deliciously gamey when done right. Waking in a panic, she realized that she was in the hospital instead of the feast, at Clarke’s side.  Galen had reassured her that everything was taken care of and it was her job to rest. She felt something odd flicker in her belly as she thought of his large palms and long, knurled fingers cupping a bowl of her favorite rabbit stew, while she carefully spooned the broth into her mouth. A bit of movement just outside the entryway, caught her attention, pulling her out of her musings.

John Murphy, Heda’s current Chief Investigator, serving as a replacement for his treasonous predecessor, walked over to his place at the head of the tallest assassin, whose weapons, clothing, and belongings were spread out on a separate table at his feet.  Clarke and Lexa entered ahead of the others, as their hands flew in muted signs in an attempt to disguise their conversation prying eyes. However, Lotte had spent the better part of a decade in service to Clarke and crown. She knew the couple’s communications like the back of her hand.

Clarke was desperately trying to hide the fact that she was furious with Heda about something Heda had hidden from her.  Heda was standing by her decision, referencing points made during a series of arguments the previous day. They boiled down to three main justifications:  

  1. Clarke was far away, engaged in important policy decisions that she couldn’t easily set aside to come rushing back.  
  2. The world was a dangerous place, so until they were all in the same location, Heda had avoided telling Clarke in case of tragedy.  
  3. She needed time to independently evaluate some group of newcomers to determine the suitability for becoming the fourteenth addition to the Kongeda without any bias from Clarke, either positive or negative.  



Clarke frowned and further narrowed her eyes.  Lotte blinked. She’d never seen Clarke this mad at Heda.  This was clearly huge. She made a note to stop by Clarke’s quarters before someone found her and hauled her back to her hospital room.

Galen was the next to enter, with a short woman at his left shoulder.  He stopped to the left of the door to lean against the wall, his left foot flush on the concrete and knobby knee, poking through a gaping hole in his gray breeches, jutting out.  He was not wearing the healer’s black duster or gloves, just the baby blue y-necked shirt with hunter green sleeves that he generally wore underneath. Lotte wondered what he was doing here, as he rarely bothered himself with the dead.

The woman approached the body, eyes focused on the stitched autopsy incision above his heart.  The light from the brazier hanging from the ceiling above the corpse’s stomach illuminated the older woman’s face, and Lotte’s heart skipped a beat.  That would most certainly explain the animosity. Anything involving Clarke’s mother could be a potential source of conflict. Clarke and Abby had a complicated relationship in the best of times on the Ark, culminating with Abby’s betrayal of her daughter and husband, a trip out the airlock for one and down to Earth for the other.  It looked like Clarke had mostly forgiven Lexa, but was still holding on to the argument as a point of principle.

Now that Lotte got a better look, Abby looked exhausted, shoulders slouched.  Brown eyes were red-rimmed and the skin around them puffy. Her clothing was wrinkled and haphazardly assembled.  Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun. Whatever had happened between Heda, Clarke, and Abby was clearly complex, and merited further investigation at a later point.

Abby pulled a set of glasses out of her pocket, a gesture mirrored by Heda.  Abby ran her fingers thoughtfully down the corpse’s y incision. She must be here to consult on the autopsy, an additional service she had performed on the Ark.

As the last of Heda’s advisors filed in, Heda carefully examined the body and the accoutramon on the table.  She curiously ran the thin silk from his robes through her fingers. “Who are these people?”

Murphy shook his head, his floppy dark hair coming unmoored from its position behind his ear.  He frowned. “Not ours. Of that, I’m certain. These clothes don’t fit any of the clans in style or material.  Their weapons are all wrong, too.” He walked around the corpse to the table, taking a dagger into his hand and unsheathing it.  The blade was glowing neon blue, like nothing Lotte had seen in her travels. That wasn’t saying much, though, as there were places in the Kongeda that Lotte had not been.  “I’ve asked around,” he continued, “and no one has seen anything like this anywhere in the clans, and that includes the traders in the northernmost reaches of Azgeda and the Dead Zone.  It’s very cool, and most likely very poisoned.”

The clothes, too, were foreign: all black silk, with many tiny wooden buttons down the front and a thick collar for the top, with voluminous pants tied at the base with thick ribbon.   They had been wearing sandals with a myriad of thin black leather straps running all the way up the calf, attached to a thick leather sole.

Abby pursed her lips, as she pried the man’s jaw open to get a good look inside.  “I don’t know how to ask this delicately, so please don’t be offended, but I feel it’s important to establish.  Is it the practice of any of the clans to remove the tongue for certain criminal offenses?”

Every eye in the room went to the man’s mouth.  Murphy answered, clasping his hands behind his back and walking around the table until he was opposite Heda.  “No offense taken, Doctor Griffin. That is not something we do here, no. We have better consequences in place.”

Galen launched off of the wall and rushed over to one of the other assassins.  He grabbed a pair of gloves from a bin on the way over. He carefully opened the mouth.  Abby joined him, scrutinizing the cauterized scar on the stump of the tongue.

“They’re all like that,” intoned the Priest of Death as he entered from his rear office.  Greig finished tying the heavy umber leather apron around the waste of his matching light leather tunic.  He dabbed at his sweaty tonsure, tattooed with an ankh, with a white cotton kerchief, before folding it and putting it in his pocket.  “And that’s not all.”

The rotund priest ambled towards the closest body and pulled a bin of organs bathed in ice from underneath the table.  He fished around, before pulling out the heart. On the section that would have faced the sternum, a symbol glowed in cyan luminescence.  It wasn’t one she’d ever seen, and it’s placement shouldn’t have been possible. She unconsciously let out a low whistle, and everyone in the room with adequate hearing jumped, followed by the rest who reacted to the situation around them.

Clarke rolled her eyes.  She signed,  _ “Lotte.  Seriously, you shouldn’t be here.  You need to rest in order to heal.” _

_ “I need to see what almost killed us.  It’s my duty to understand our enemies.” _

_ “Fine, I release you of your duty for today.” _

_ “That’s not how that works, Wanheda, and you know that.” _  Lotte could feel herself sagging, as she’d had to let go of her glaive to sign, so she spoke the rest, relying on Clarke to read her lips.  “I’ll finish up here, then right to bed. I promise.”

_ “Ok.  But if I see you so much as slouch, I will have Galen throw you over his shoulder and carry you back.” _

Galen blushed furiously.  Interesting. Something about this was making him uncomfortable.  Lotte puzzled for a moment, coming to no conclusions, then reverting her focus back to the investigation.

Clarke marched back to the heart.  “Mom? Thoughts?”

Abby’s entire face squinted as she turned the heart in her hands, looking at the rune from every angle.  She brought to her nose, sniffing it thoroughly. Grabbing a nearby scalpel, she placed a kerchief on the table and gently scraped at the glowing rune.  Some of it flaked off, looking all the world like drunken fireflies as it gathered in a pile in the center of the white bandana. She wrapped it up and turned to Heda.  “Is there someone you have that could possibly analyze what’s in this? We have a chemist, but he hasn’t been feeling the most charitable towards outsiders lately, and I would rather put this in the hands of someone more reliable.”

“Yes,” Heda replied.  “There is someone I can think of who could run some tests, or connect you with the right person if he can’t.  We’ll take you over to the University once we finish up here.”

“Excellent.”  Abby placed the heart in part of the bin with the most ice.  She quickly scanned the remaining viscera, then stepped back, finished with her examination.  

Murphy brought the sheathed dagger to Abby.  “If you’re going to the University, can you take this for them to test, first for poisons, then to see why this thing is glowing and what possible purpose that serves.”

“Sure.”  Abby reached out and wrapped her fingers around the scuffed leather scabbard.

“Anything else for us, Greig?” asked Lexa.

Greig moved to prepare the bodies for ritual cremation.  He pressed his lips together in a thin, tight line, his breath quickening  He was hiding something.

“Speak, Priest,” Lotte forced out.  “What is it you’re not telling us.”

“I didn’t dare to say anything until I was absolutely sure, but something’s not right with the matter of when they died.  Some parts of them seemed like they were dead before the rest of them.”

Lotte blinked for a moment, trying to determine if this was a circumstance under which her skin should be crawling.  She felt overwhelming numbness, as usual, and no attempt to consider the situation they were in could bring about the desired response.  She puffed her cheeks for a moment. Everyone else was busy having situationally appropriate responses, and she was stuck on Jack Frost mode.

“I thought I was imagining things,” Abby said, furiously scanning the body in front of her for evidence of what Greig was suggesting.  Leaning forward, she squinted intently at a part of the corpse cavity that Lotte could not see. Her gaze returned to the pan of organs, her fingers prodding the flesh for details she’d missed.  Finally, her head came up, a frightened expression radiating from her face. “This shouldn’t be possible.”

Greig returned the process of preparing the bodies for disposal.  “The gods are strange and we cannot know their motives.”

Abby opened her mouth to argue, but Clarke snatched the heart from the bin and moved to haul Abby out of the room by her elbow.  Smart. Most members of the Coalition had little care for religion, including Heda. The priests, on the other hand, were devout and not above resorting to drastic measures to eliminate heathens and other threats to their traditions.  Lotte strongly suspect that a number of attempts in the string of assassination plots on the Imperial Family had been ordered by the Fleimkeepa Titus or one of his more enterprising underlings. Hopefully Clarke would explain on the way over to the University.

Just before Clarke was able to make a clean exit, someone Lotte couldn’t see stopped her in her tracks.  Lotte craned her neck to get a look at the person standing on the other side of the doorway, but judging by the alarmed looks on Clarke and Heda’s faces, it wasn’t good.  Clarke spoke in a hushed voice to her mother, handed her the heart, and disappeared from the room with Heda. Murphy gathered the notes he had been organizing while the others were examining the bodies and stuffed them in his satchel before following.  

Lotte planted the glaive’s heft firmly on the floor and slid off of the stool’s seat.  Legs wobbling, she focused intently on placing one foot in front of the other. Her hand shot out to the wall, as she felt her knees buckle, catching herself before she fell.  Getting back to her room was going to be quite difficult. As she rounded the corner to exit through the door, her way was blocked by Galen.

He stood in the hallway just outside of the door with a wooden wheelchair.  It had large front bicycle wheels and rear castors, with a wicker back and seat, framed by maple wood.  He must have left while everyone was gawking the rune on the heart. She sighed. The truth was, she ached to the bone and there was no reason not to accept help when it was offered, her exhaustion dulling her fiercely independent streak.  Lotte nodded and sank into the waiting chair, settling her glaive in her lap so that it would be out of the way without clipping Galen.

He smiled and stepped to the side of the chair sot that she could see his hands.   _ “Glad to see you’re feeling reasonable today.” _

_ “I actually want to get better, you know.  I do Wanheda no good when I’m too laid up to protect her properly.  I just had to know what we were up against.” _

“ _ I get it.  You take your obligation seriously.  But Wanheda would have told you everything you needed to know without you having to risk your health.” _

_ “While that is true, I needed to see for myself.” _

She could feel Galen wanting to argue, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.  He was much better about knowing when to mind his own business than most she knew, the most egregious of the bunch usually being healers.  While Galen didn’t have the eloquence or tact that his sister did, he could keep his opinions to himself when it was in everyone’s best interest. With a quick nod, he resumed his place at the back of the chair, and pushed her down the hall.

She felt the chair slow to a stop in front of a large window with a sweeping view of the bay.  It was little known that this small hospital, not Polis Tower, had been the rationale behind choosing this place for a settlement, and the reason it grew.  The medical equipment had survived the fiery devastation, although nothing electronic worked anymore. It was one of the overwhelming number projects Raven’s department at the University was working on.

Four stories up in a mostly pre-industrial society provided a comprehensive picture, with nothing remotely tall enough to interfere with the view.  The sky was cloudy and the waves were choppy. Fishing boats peppered the water, seeking crab, striped bass, and flounder, along with their unnamed mutated offspring.  A few enterprising fishermen dredged for clams. Lotte’s mouth watered. The fresh saltwater seafood was definitely her favorite part of their time here.

Galen came around the chair and crouched where she could see him.  _ “Behold!” _ he signed dramatically,  _ “Ches Harbor, all of the beauty and none of the smells.” _

Lotte smiled.   _ “I like the smells.  There’s so many of them down here.” _

_ “You would,” _ he said fondly.   _ “Unfortunately, they haven’t figured out how to bottle Eau d’Wharf.” _

_ “I don’t know.  According to Clarke’s handmaidens, there’s a rather inventive perfumier on the outskirts of the tanning district doing interesting things with fish oil.  We had a good laugh about it after they left, but the next time we have a spare moment, we are going. We have to know. You should come with.” _

_ “To buy fish oil perfume?  I’ve been looking for a new scent.  Everyone keeps complaining about L’Entrails.” _

_ “No, goofball, To enjoy something that has nothing to do with politics, policy, war, medicine, or in Clarke’s case, child rearing.” _

_ “Oh.  Then definitely count me in.” _

She felt something warm worm around inside her chest, something she hadn’t experienced since the Ark.  It was slippery, too hard to hold, but it was there. She tried to feel frustrated or angry that she couldn’t keep it, but ran up against the same emotional barrier as always.  Clarke often lamented to Lotte that she wished she could master her feelings the way her young bodyguard appeared to. But, Lotte reminded her queen, there was a great deal of difference between not losing control of one’s feelings and not being able to feel at all.  

Most of the time, she didn’t let it bother her.  Every once in awhile, when she caught a Lexa and Clarke sharing a heated glance, the deficiency in her emotional range became readily apparent to her, and she hungered for something better. Now, she had something.  It may be gone now, but it would come back. She just had to wait. In the meantime, she would sit with Galen and count the seagulls harassing the fishmongers on the pier.


	5. Chapter 4: Raven

Chapter 4: Raven

 

Late afternoon sunlight pierced the wooden slats in the blinds, painting stripes on Raven’s back as she sat at her desk, grading the tests her teacher’s assistant had administered during Raven’s sabbatical up North for a big canal project that lasted all summer and the better part of fall. It was hard to settle back into the sedentary nature of chairing the Engineering department at The University. She loved the intense physical labor, despite her garbage leg, and bickering with Barth and Monty over schematics by firelight. She would not miss being a member of Clarke’s advisory council in political and military matters. She would leave that to Lexa, Bellamy, and Octavia, thank you very much. Here, it was just her, her students, and her inventions, not necessarily in that order. Except now, with very big complication.

This complication, more than any desire to procrastinate, was what was really interfering with her ability to focus at the moment on the term papers about infrastructure. Most of them were fairly well-written. Two showed particular promise in the matter of bridge design. One involving an innovative moveable bridge should have been enough to captivate her, but her mind was stuck on the Feast of S’wain, and a certain dance partner from the night before.

Raven glanced over at the mask hanging from the corner of her chalkboard. It had been a gift from Lexa, of all people: a demonstration that she valued Clarke’s surrogate family like her own. The feathers had been gathered from the cages of the live crows that the Coalition used for communications. Two leather strings dangled from each side, to fasten the mask to her head. The shiny black beak, expertly crafted from black leather, was Raven’s favorite part, and elicited a brief memory of the point of its beak brushing Abby’s ear as Raven leaned in to kiss her. That kiss had been everything Raven imagined on every dark night for the past ten years, bringing her a sense of completion that she’d never experienced. 

Raven tried desperately over the years to bury Abby’s ghost. Affection had taken root that first day, when Abby hauled Raven out of the air duct she’d been spying from, and the seed of love was thumbed into her heart’s soil when they fought and scrounged like mad to make a centuries old junker into a functional drop pod. She saw just how deep Abby’s love could be, fighting for her child and the children, old and young, that the Ark considered expendable. Raven’s heart had shattered when she saw the burning coffins streaking across the sky, and thought how heartsick Abby must have been, if they hadn’t floated her for squandering precious resources on launching the pod with Raven. Every night, she looked at where she knew the Ark should be as it sailed through the stars in Ursa Major’s armpit. 

As time passed, she’d taken lovers and partners, as well as mindlessly fucking her way through a fair few pretty faces. Nothing worked. Inevitably, she’d get antsy, and go searching for someone else that wasn’t quite right. Now, Abby was here, and if she could figure out how to erase last night and start over, that would be great. She might be an excellent engineer, but the Kongeda was ages from manufacturing the parts needed for a time machine, so she’d have to live with the consequences of last night’s impulsivity.

Guides, she’d made a mess of things. She’d intended to walk over, have a nice conversation with Abby, get in a dance or two, and set up another time to meet up at the Biga Floudon when they weren’t required to hide their identities. Maybe catch up, maybe get a little closer. Nice and simple.

That was all ruined. She’d gotten greedy, let her id pilot the ship, and now she’d have to figure out a way to make up for lost ground, before even laying out the foundation for building a new bridge. But Abby had been so beautiful last night, and she’d said yes when Raven asked. A dark voice whispered that she’d said yes to a stranger in a mask, not her daughter’s best friend who was nearly eighteen years her junior. 

She’d stormed back to her classroom and sobbed into her elbow at her desk, before stripping down for bed. She'd hung her formal jacket and tricorn hat on the coat tree in the far corner, boots underneath. Abandoning the trousers in a pile in the corner with her linen shirt, she'd rapidly changing into the grey cotton t-shirt and loose woolen drawstring cutoff shorts that she’d fashioned from the pants she wore when she was still serving as a sapper in the Azgeda army. She'd stumbled to her hammock strung up between the remains of a catapult and a trebuchet behind her desk, and promptly drank herself to sleep with half a bottle of Monty’s special moonshine. 

York, her extremely insightful T.A., had brought her a hearty breakfast of toast dipped in egg yolk and sausage stuffed with sage, along with a large banana for potassium, all carefully arranged in front of the papers she needed to have graded before classes started up again on Monday. On the corner of her desk sat a karaf of York’s All Natural Athletic Drink and Hangover Cure. It bore a striking similarity to the Gatorade from the Ark. She couldn’t help but acknowledge that the boy had the makings of a very fine chemist.

Taking a large bite of her banana, she reached for the stack of papers. The one on top had barely legible handwriting, so she set it aside for a time when her head didn’t feel like it was stuffed with yesterday’s socks. The next one was no better, as many of these students from the far reaches of the Coalition were still perfecting their penmanship. Finally, she settled on the moveable bridge paper, reaching for her quil and the red inkwell.

She heard the heavy oaken door to the stairs open. Light footsteps shuffled through before the door closed with a pneumatic hiss. The nasally soprano voice of Galen’s teaching assistant carried down the hall, as she provided a tour of the University to a group most likely made up of provincial students from some far-flung village of the empire. Raven buried herself in an especially dry section on large-scale hydraulics, hoping, however unlikely, that they would skip right by her classroom. The stump of her middle finger on her left hand drummed on the desktop next to her quill while she considered one of the equations serving as the lynchpin of this project.

“And in here, we have our head of the Engineering department, Professor Reyes.”

Raven internally rolled her eyes. She was far too young to be “Professor Reyes.” Keeping her eyes on her work, she addressed the young tour guide. “Mavis, what is Rule Number One?”

“Assume you will be hungover after any, and all feasts?”

“Correct. What is Rule Number Two?”

“Do not bring people here until after three, at least.”

“What was last night?”

“A feast.”

“What time is it now?”

“Not after three.”

“What stands to reason?”

“There should be no people in your classroom?”

“And yet…”

“I’m here on Heda’s orders.”

“Heda ordered you to give some rube from the hinterlands a tour? Today?”

“Oh, no. It’s the new clan’s chancellor.”

“Oh.” Raven blushed furiously and held up a finger on her good hand as she shoved the remainder of her banana into her mouth, chewing vigorously, before chasing it with what was left of her sports drink. 

Mavin looked at Raven expectantly with large eyes that were far too big for her face peeking out from behind a fringe of blonde hair. Next to her stood a small cluster of people wearing torn and patched Skaikru clothing. She searched the faces for Abby’s, only to find that she was not there. She did, however, recognize most of them, as they had been counsellors back when she was still on the Ark. Her eyes narrowed. She had no love for these bourgeois leaders who had heartlessly jettisoned a drop pod of young children that they considered to be expendable to the ground in the off chance that the Earth was survivable. They looked back at her with curious eyes. It was blatantly obvious that none of them recognized her.

Then, there was a ripple of movement from the back, and the counsellors parted to make way for, in her opinion, the most notorious of the bunch: Marcus Kane. Instead of Skaikru garb, he had transitioned to the type of textiles worn by Kongeda leadership. The chancellor’s pin was affixed to the lapel of his short, tan frock coat. His clothing was clean and free of wear and tear, his riding boots shined. He looked every bit the product of privilege Raven remembered from the Ark.

Kane crossed his arms and stroked his naked chin, as if missing a beard recently shaven. “Reyes. I remember you. Isobel’s girl, and the final sacrificial lamb sent to the ground in a three hundred year old death trap. Good to see you lived. It appears that I owe Sinclaire a great deal of money.”

“Sinclaire’s here?” Raven’s heart soared. The man had replaced the father she never knew, and she deeply mourned his loss. Besides, there were so many things she’d learned, so many questions she had, and now, there was a master engineer to ask. They would have to plan a trip to Site R to further plunder the technology she didn’t possess the experience to address. She’d have to take him out to The Boasting Boar, the pub with the the best beer and cheese in Polis, which put every ounce of alcohol on the Ark to shame. They would both have stories to tell, and she couldn’t wait to hear his.

“Not with us,” Kane smiled, “but back at Arkadia, a couple of days ride west of here.”

“Holy shit.” Raven didn’t think there was anything, in the sky or on the ground that could surprise her, but here she was, at a total loss for words.

Kane looked around the room for a moment, noting the crow mask on the chalkboard, before taking a deep breath and meeting her eyes. “I can imagine that I’m not your favorite person by a long shot. Know this: you have my very humble, and extremely sincere apology for what you must have gone through. If our leadership, which includes myself, had even an ounce of faith in each other, we could have outfitted your pod with all of the gear it needed, instead of involving you in a covert operation to rescue a group of children we had no business sending to the ground in the first place.”

Raven’s jaw flopped open. Ark leadership ran on austerity, and never apologized for anything, even when it was blatantly obvious that certain leadership failures were responsible for any number of unpleasantries. For a moment, she wondered what changed. Before she could formulate an answer, she heard the door to the stairs fly open and frantic footsteps pounding in the direction of her classroom.

York rushed through the door, holding aloft a glass test tube with a cork stopper containing a glowing liquid. The young chemist looked positively euphoric, eyes bright and grin wide. He wore a blue button-up shirt with tiny, evenly spaced polka dots underneath a rich maroon waistcoat. His brogues were scuffed and the hem of his slacks was ratty from dragging on the ground. He waggled the test tube in Raven’s direction. “You have to check this out!”

Raven glanced at the luminous fluid. “What is that?”

“An organic compound I’ve never seen, and doesn’t seem to be in our database. The cell structure is totally unique. It appears to be fungal in nature, but that’s the most detail I was able to discern. I figured I’d bring it up here and get your opinion.”

“Where did this come from?”

“Skaikru’s ambassador dropped it by my lab this afternoon. Doc said she’d scraped these off of some rune on a man’s heart. She also brought a dagger that was coated in a powder of the same compound.”

Rising in as smooth a motion as she could muster, she winced as nearly every joint she had popped loudly. Her body was useless in the morning, requiring the warm up time of a gasoline generator. York set the tube in a holder on one of the counters in back, along with a slide already prepared for the microscope. The rest of them crowded around it. Raven took the slide and trundled over to the microscope to have a good look. She busied herself with the adjustments so that she could get a good look at the lambent liquid, which is why she didn’t see it coming.

Raven felt someone punch her twice from behind, once i near her spine, two fingers below her heart, and once in her lower back, just above the top of her brace. Turning to see who had tagged her, her legs buckled, and she tumbled to the ground. Wetness soaked her shirt, her hand clasped at its hem as she tried to understand what was happening. She heard a scuffle from the counter where York, Maive, and the council had been grouped, looking at the mysterious vial. Screams, most likely from the coddled politicians, emanated from that direction She tried to stand, but the most movement she managed was the flexing of her ankle.

One final growl ripped through the air in York’s high tenor voice. Blades clashed, then one skittered across the stone floor. The thick leather hilt wrapped tightly with braided leather came to rest mere inches from her eyes. Her heart sank as she realized that was York’s blade. 

Just as Raven registered this, York pitched forward, landing across Raven’s stomach. His shoulder drove into her ribcage expelled the air from her lungs, leaving her wheezing. A sandled foot connected to baggy silk pants stepped over Raven’s head and disappeared from her line of sight in the direction of the door. All Raven could do was gasp and watch York’s eyes flutter as he started bleeding out on top of her.

“Get him off,” Kane’s voice rose from the corner. Nothing moved. “Damnit, get your heads out of your asses and help me help them!”

Kane’s face appeared behind York, hands gripping his shoulders to pull him up. Her back throbbed, the pain concentrating in what she had come to realize were stab wounds. Another familiar face materialized next to her, hands seeking a pulse at Raven’s throat. “Doctor… Cartwig…” Raven managed.

Callie Cartwig’s black irises darted back and forth, assessing Raven’s injuries. “Nothing went all the way through. Raven, I’m going to turn you over, okay, honey. I need to put pressure on the wounds until we can get you back to Abby and Galen.”

The older councilwoman gripped Raven’s shoulders and guided her over onto her side, before gently flipping her onto her stomach. Her body exploded in pain, new punctures joining old injuries in a chorus of agony. Rags pressed against her wounds, held in place with even pressure by steady hands. Raven remembered that Abby had said something about Callie assisting on a couple of surgeries in absolute emergencies. The surgeon mentioned that Callie was quite good for a psychiatrist.

“Muir, get the chalkboard over here,” Kane shouted. “We can use it to load Raven up. Brandt, bring the hammock for the boy.”

Before Raven could even process what was happening, she was being lifted, and then gently laid atop her own chalkboard. Her thumbnail scraped across its surface, causing her flesh to goosepimple and hairs to stand up. Laughter and blood bubbled up to her lips. Here she was, dying, most likely, and her body was more worried about the sensation of literal nails on a chalkboard.

It was in that moment that her spirit stepped outside of her body. She’d heard of things like this happening. Damn, she’d even bet against it with Barth as their sapper unit awaited a particularly bloody battle with the Wandakru during her days as a Secon. It rankled more that she’d have to admit he was right, than the actual sum of money she was about to lose.

The cluster of Skaikru politicians exited the University and charged across the courtyard to the hospital, bellowing for assistance. Trikru guards rushed them, taking over at the head and foot of Raven’s chalkboard and York’s hammock. One of them tried to take over for Dr. Cartwig, but she shook her head, her hands firmly in place. The other councillors peeled off, bent over and huffing with their hands on their knees. Marcus Kane, however, jogged over to Raven’s shoulder, keeping pace with the guards. His eyes said, _“I’m not leaving you.”_

They burst into the hospital waiting room, dripping trails of blood behind them. The silver-haired elder behind the desk, Pidge, if Raven remembered correctly, darted in back with much greater speed than one would expect of someone with that many winters in order to retrieve someone with the right level surgical experience. The guards carrying York set him down on the ground, looking stunned at the amount of damage, unsure of where to start. 

Kane recognized their fearful looks for what they were and dashed over to apply first aid to until healers could get to him. He put his ear to the young man’s chest, listening for evidence of breathing and felt for a pulse. Finding both, he set about doing the best that he could with the myriad of stab wounds to his chest and stomach, ignoring the nasty gash running from underneath York’s shaggy blonde bangs. York’s injuries were catastrophic. It was a wonder he was still alive. She wanted to thank Kane, Cartwig, and the two council members she didn’t recognise for caring enough to help someone who wasn’t theirs. 

A pack of healers erupted from the back: Galen and several she didn’t remember. Clarke and Abby were not among them. Hopefully they were having that talk that Clarke had been anxious to have. More than anything, she did not want Abby to see her laid out like this.

No such luck, as Abby burst through the doors several steps behind them. Galen, glancing at Raven, quickly directed Abby to take care of York. He was in much worse shape than Raven, in her non-clinical opinion, and they could avoid Raven’s added personal baggage with Abby, the details of which Galen was acutely aware after a series of deep conversations following a fair few Skai Yongon pub crawls. 

Her attention returned to her own body, watching the healers assess her wounds and gather their instruments. Raven noted that she was struggling to breathe, her chest raggedly rising and falling. Sweat coated her body. The blood exiting the wound in her upper body was frothy. When she managed a weak cough, blood spattered the trousers on Galen’s hip.

He rapidly assessed the damage. “Damnit, she’s got a sucking chest wound.”

Arriving through the main entrance, Clarke stepped up quickly. “How can I help?”

“You can plug that up while I go get the gear to take care of that.”

Clarke used gauze to clean the area around the wound. Applying the plastic wrap they’d pilfered from Site R, she taped it down with surgical tape. Raven had never been more grateful that Clarke had nixed Raven’s plan to blow Site R to smithereens after their disastrous invasion. However, it was getting even more difficult to breathe. Something else was happening, her lips were turning blue and the side of her chest opposite the wound had increased in size. She tried to get anyone’s attention, but, of course, they couldn’t see her.

Clarke, however, was a sharp cookie and picked up on Raven’s breathing. She examined Raven’s lips, chest, and neck. “Galen, get over here. Her goddamned lung collapsed!”

Galen returned at a run with a bin of surgical tools topped with a pile of gloves. He pulled a small decaying device from underneath a wicked looking pair of bone cutters, and scanned her chest with it. The x-ray popped up on its cracked screen. Galen and Clarke both poured over it, noting every detail, each formulating a plan to address what they saw. Meanwhile, Galen’s assistants draped cloths on her body to create a barrier to prevent infection. One heavily freckled girl, who couldn’t be more than sixteen or seventeen, began arranging instruments on a tray at Raven’s shoulder for easy access.

“Chest tube?” Clarke asked, eyes on Galen for his reply.

“Chest tube. I’ve got that, you scan and stitch up that wound, provided it missed the vital nerves.” Galen pointed towards Raven’s lower back. He reached for two pairs of gloves, handing one to Clarke. 

They moved with great speed and efficiency, displaying the kind of synergy acquired from countless hours spent side by side treating the illnesses and injuries of the citizens of Polis. Galen went about the task of surgically inserting her chest tube, while Clarke addressed the stab wound near her spine. Clarke nodded when the scanner displayed the results. They must have been to Clarke’s liking, because she moved hurriedly to repair the injury. 

Raven could feel herself fading. She was oxygen-starved, at this point, and had lost a significant amount of blood. Adding it all together, even she could see the prognosis was not good. _No,_ she thought, _I can’t die yet. Abby just got here..._


	6. Chapter 5: Clarke

Clarke’s pencil scratched against the paper as she shaded in the outline of Raven’s lips with a slender utensil made with a chunk of soft graphite wrapped in sheepskin.  The slim engineer lay flat on her stomach on a cot in one of the rooms in the Polis Hospital, resting after hours of surgery. The sketch captured Raven’s condition with painstaking detail, detailing the piles of bloody bandages that had since been removed, and the tubing sticking out of Raven’s collapsed lung.  It was all she could do, as both her mother and Galen had flat out banned her from the series of grueling surgeries, after working together to stabilize Raven in the waiting room. Abby reminded her that she should not be operating on her friends. Galen said that the sheer amount of chaos in the past few days had rendered her too drained to be of any use.  

Clarke’s eyelids slid sluggishly closed, and it took all her effort to get them back open.  Exhaustion pressed down against her skull, but her neurons were firing rapidly, trying to make sense of their current imperial crisis.  One critical situation led to another. Throw the feast in, and she hadn’t had a real moment with her doting wife, beloved children, frightened mother, new sister, or adopted family since she'd arrived.

Now, she was in that miserable space of being too tired to sleep.  She snuck a glance at her mother, who was sitting in a camp chair at the foot of York’s bed.  Abby was slouched over, elbows resting on her knees, head in her hands. Raven had been out of surgery for a little over two hours, and Abby was finally starting to feel the effects of the wild adrenaline ride instigated by recent events.

This was the most time she’d spent with her mother since Clarke had arrived and it was spent in awkward silence.  Abby was clearly distressed about Raven’s condition, as was Clarke, but Abby wasn’t nearly as adept at hiding it. Most conversation consisted of status updates, potential procedures, and prognoses.  

In days previous, Clarke had been able to avoid her mother with a combination of urgent imperial responsibilities, preparations for the feast, and the investigation into the attacks that presently plagued them.  Now, all of her obligations were completed or delegated, leaving her time to sit vigil for Raven with her mother, sketching to avoid a real conversation. She pressed harder on the lead and the silvery lines deepened.

Clarke was so engrossed in her drawing that she didn’t see her mother drag the camp chair across the room until Abby was sitting directly across from her.  She felt a sharp tap on her shoulder. Abby’s lips formed the words, “You can finally stop avoiding me and we can actually talk.”

Abby’s eyebrows crowding her shimmery eyes, and her lips pressing together with the corners down.  Clarke leaned her tablet against the chair leg and returned her pencil to its case before setting it next to the tablet.   “I wasn’t avoiding you. I have responsibilities.”

Abby exhaled heavily, lips tightening.  Clarke watched her battle herself, the capable leader in her knowing that what Clarke said was very true, and the wounded mother seeing it for what it really was: an excuse.  Swallowing thickly, Abby’s emotions swept down her esophagus with her saliva. Clarke’s chest ached. She wanted to say that she was sorry, but she couldn’t, because the truth was, she wasn’t the least bit sorry.  If anything, she felt sorry that Abby had been saddled with her as a daughter, but they were all stuck with each other, so they would have to figure out how to make it all work. Abby searched around for something to say to break the thundering silence that had engulfed the room.

“So…. Brighid told me that you’re the brains behind the throne.”

“Oh, no!  Bless her, no.  She has some historically justified prejudices against Heda and what she represents.  She loves Lexa the person, because she’s mine, but resents Heda the politician.”

“In truth, it’s more like I’m Pericles to Lexa’s Alexander the Great.”

A tiny pebble bounced off of the side of her neck, netting her attention.    _ “You do realize that they were about a hundred years apart,” _ Lexa corrected,signing with a fond smile on her face.  She was standing in the door, a small wooden stool leaning against her left leg, with a leather satchel slung over one shoulder.  Her stately garb and ceremonial armor were gone, replaced with a thin, loose muslin shirt and soft-looking cotton pants.

_ “It was a metaphor.” _

_ “Mixed, at best,” _ Lexa winked.

_ “That was not what a mixed metaphor is,” _ her heart melted a little at that.  Lexa had spent so much of her life in grim trappings, that, at times, she still didn’t quite get what made jokes funny.  Others, her razor sharp quips cut the laughter right out of Clarke’s lungs. Regardless, she loved the fact that her wife still tried.

Lexa picked up a diminutive stool and set it at Clarke’s shoulder.  It was short, and she looked ridiculous on it as she carefully folded her limbs in order to fit.  Reaching into the satchel, she pulled out a small ball of clothing, which looked to be Clarke’s pajamas, before handing them to her and lowering it the scant few inches to her feet.  

Clarke watched Abby’s eyes shift, and harden as the corners crinkled and lids narrowed.  The seventy-two hour emotional rollercoaster had to come out somewhere.  _ Oh, Lexa, you just stepped onto the bee’s nest that I knocked over _ .

“At what point were you going to tell me my daughter was alive.”  The slender muscles in Abby’s thin neck bulged as much as they were capable of.  “Or send for her to come home to tell me herself. You are most likely an actual genius: I know you knew who Mara and I are to Clarke.”

“It was completely necessary,” Lexa straightened up and pushed her chin out ever-so-slightly.  She signed while she spoke to make it easier for Clarke to follow. “I had to think of what was best for the three of you, as well as the people you lead.  I can’t just call one of my clan leaders back for personal matters when they are in the middle of vital clan business. I did my best to integrate both you and Mara into my family as much as could be done before Klark got back.  I do wish it would have been possible to see each other sooner, but it wasn’t.”

Abby shot to her feet and started pacing in a tight loop, scrubbing the skin underneath her lower lip with her thumb and forefinger.  Her head was subtly shaking back and forth, her ponytail swishing over the back of her neck. She started to say something several times, but stopped herself to reconsider her words.  Lexa forged onward.

“Now, Klark is back, and we are all here together, there are some important rules surrounding family relationships in the Kongeda that you need to be aware of, particularly concerning Heda’s family. They are very strict, but everyone knows you’re new to court, so in the beginning, you’re going to have some margin of error.  To be blunt, we as a people are very formal. We do things this way so that no one is accidentally offended to the point of sparking a needless war.

“In private,” Lexa started to outline on a fresh piece of paper she took from Clarke’s tablet with one of Clarke’s pencils, “You may call either of us Lexa or Clarke respectively.  In public, I am Heda Lexa, Heda, or The Commander. Clake is Wanheda, Ice Queen, Queen of the Ice Nation, or Azplana. You as Clarke’s mother are not exempt from these rules. It is very important that you remember this, even when you are upset or angry.  We are working to ease the consequences for a social misstep, but our empire is early spring, and all it takes is a mild frost to destroy the crocuses. Do you have any questions?”

“Not about etiquette, no,” Abby’s face was a mishmash of expressions.  “You provided an excellent explanation upon my arrival.”

“Are there any rules around what I call my grandchildren?” the word appeared to feel foreign in Abby’s mouth.

“Most of the time, no.  In ceremonial court proceedings, Jacob will be referred to as Jacob: Prince of Azgeda, or Azplansen.  The others don’t generally come up in formal conversation, so we’re not going to have to worry. I’m in the process of consulting the priests about Mara, as she is a half-sister to Klark, thus technically giving her a claim to the throne of the Ice Nation.  Not a very strong one, mind, but one nevertheless. This could theoretically create problems for Anya or Jasper, should something happen that Jacob could not ascend.”

Abby’s jaw dropped.  It was obvious that she hadn’t considered that as a possibility.  The idea that her entire family had descended into mortal peril was clearly not sitting well with her, as she fidgeted helplessly with her hands.  Finally, she found her words, “How do we undo that?”

Lexa’s face softened.  “I’m not sure that we can, but I will do my very best.  I understand what it is like to wish a child could be distanced from my politics.”

“How did this even happen?  How did my child get to be a queen of anything?”

Clarke stared at the clear fluid of Raven’s IV, as the drops plunged into the reservoir at the bottom of the drip chamber.  She could feel her spirit stepping outside of her body at the thought of their arrival and the first few years under Nia’s thumb.  

Lexa’s fingers lace with hers, other hand pulling her chin until they were face to face.  Lexa leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. Her fingers dropped to Clarke’s lap, wrapping around her opposite wrist, stroking along her veins.  She felt herself coming back into the present. Clarke focused on the flecks of brown buried in Lexa’s vibrant green irises. If nobody moved, maybe Clarke could tell this story.

“When we first landed, it was like nothing I’d ever imagined.  The air was purer, with a refreshing humidity. The pine trees, butterflies, and birds were vibrant, the smell of the needles and muddy earth overwhelming.  It was still drizzling.

“The first few hours were chaos, children whose entire lives had been spent in one box or another were finally free to run wild and explore.  Those of us who had paid attention in Earth studies focused on finding supplies and shelter. A quick schism developed between the privileged on the Ark and those who were not; those who favored order vs those who favored anarchy.

“A group of us set off for Site R, but we never reached it because we set off a trap left by a local Azgeda village intended to capture Reapers.  A good thing too, after we found out who the Mountain Men really were.”

Clarke stopped, squeezing her eyes shut.  She never in a million years thought that she would have to sit in front of her mother and give an accounting of her sins.  Bile seared the base of her esophagus. She focused on where the skin on the tip of her skull met Lexa’s, trying to draw strength flowing through that connection.  The heavily muffled anger in Abby’s voice tore through her wobbly serenity. Clarke turned her head slightly and caught the last bit of Abby’s inquiry. “Why didn’t we hear from you?”  

“Site R had scrambled all coms, ours, Raven’s, yours as you tried to reach us.  The Ice Nation’s warriors were upon us before we had time to really figure any of that out.  After a brief war, which we lost, we were absorbed into Azgeda, and you would have run out of air.”

Clarke’s world started to tip sideways.  Azgeda boots vault Skaiyongon’s makeshift walls. Ghostly faces dash from tree to tree as her friends used up their bullets.  Bellamy herds frightened teenagers into the drop ship, before losing two getting the doors shut. A hazy panic settles into her ribcage as she depresses the red button, igniting the hydrozine in the tanks, and expelling the burning vapors out of the nozzle at the surrounding army.  Deathly silence envelopes the survivors in the dropship as she tends to the bullet wound Raven sustained from Murphy’s serious lapse in judgment. Her ears strain for a chirp or stirring of leaves to break the ghoulish tranquility that seized the clearing after the press of a button reducing everything to ash.  Clarke can’t breathe.

The smell of charred flesh and bone melds with the sound of swords finding home in human tissue. Gunfire strafes across where Finn stood just a moment ago.  Finn. She fought desperately to inhale. _Stomp your feet.  You are having a flashback.  Breathe. In-two-three-four, Hold-two-three-four, Out-two-three-four, Hold-two-three-four._

The haze began to clear as the bellows in Clarke’s ribcage drew air in and evenly pushed it out.  She hunched over, elbows on knees and palms pressing flat against her temples. Her leg jiggled and she swiped her hands down her face in a smoothing motion, and then folded them together so that her chin was resting on her thumbs.  The quiet rumble of muted voices in the Polis Hospital returned, as did the strong smell of disinfectant and drying blood on used bandages.

Lexa waited patiently, crouching off to her side.  As Clarke became more grounded, her wife shuffled over until they were face to face again, but this time with sufficient distance for Clarke to have space.  Lexa signed calmly and evenly,  _ “What do you need?” _

Clarke shook her head.  This was just more of the same; nothing could be done at this point.   _ “I just need to come down for a second.  Maybe get myself a drink?” _

_ “Ok.”   _ Before Clarke could move, Lexa swept a strand of Clarke’s hair out of her eyes with slender fingers, rising and disappearing to find a glass of water.

Clarke played with a thick, silvery earring that pierced her earlobe.  How was she going to do this? She could barely get two sentences into her story, before dissolving into flashbacks.  How was she going to find the strength to tell her mother the ruin she had wrought with her blood caked hands, clots still clinging to her fingernails?

She finally looked up to see her mother, tears clinging to the corners of her dark eyes, lip subtly quivering.  Abby’s eyes were zeroed in on the scars overwhelming the skin she could see.  _ Let’s tear this bandaid off. _

“I can only give you a rough sketch on rumpled paper, but I’ll do my best.  We impressed the former Ice Queen, a monster in her own right. Please don’t ask how today.  She folded us into her kingdom, made us our own sept. I earned my place as a general in her armies, scrapping my way up the ladder.  Then, I waited. In the meantime, I tried to show as much mercy and generosity as I could to the people ground to ice crystals by her boot.  This endeared me to her subjects, so that after the fall of the Mountain, when I made my move, the only people in Nia’s corner were her weakest generals and the more conservative nobility.  She lacked even the support of her own son.”

Clarke inwardly cringed.  They were getting to the dicey part of her ascension.  Rather, the dicy part excluding the business at the Mountain...

“I quietly arranged for the assassination of influential nobles, as well as false attacks on key generals, so that Nia was left with minimal support at the capital,” Clarke continued.  Abby shifted uncomfortably. “I rode in, marched into court, threw down my helm, and challenged her rule to trial by combat. I had spent years training to beat this one specific person in the hopes that I stood a chance at killing her.  Octavia and her warriors had orders that if I fell, they were to shoot her down where she stood and instigate a civil war. Much better our nation be bogged down in infighting than threatening the stability of the empire. By a stroke of luck, I managed a victory, although it came at the cost of my eye.  If you knew her, you would know how small a price that was. And-”

Clarke stopped and looked around for Lexa.  She hadn’t come back, which Clarke found strange.  It had only been a glass of water, and in the hospital, that should not have been difficult to find.  She fought the urge to avoid this conversation to go find Lexa. Her mother deserved as many answers as she could muster right now, with the rest coming as soon as could be managed.  Grinding her teeth for a moment, she soldiered on.

“Once I had been crowned, I rode down to Lexa with proof of the Ice Queen’s defeat.  Lexa announced our engagement to our people, quelled the objections, and married me as soon as ceremony would allow.”

For the first time in Clarke’s account, Abby interrupted, her eyes creased with worry.  “A political marriage? Do you love her?”

Clarke beamed and her eyes glazed over.  “Absolutely. We started off as allies and evolved into something worth dying for.  She’s the most amazing person I’ve ever met. I’m so excited for you to meet--, get to know her through my heart.”

Abby breathed a sigh of relief and returned Clarke’s broad smile.  For a moment, the air felt a little lighter. Maybe this wouldn’t be as terrible as she’d feared?  Her camp chair creaked, wood and canvas letting loose a whine, as she relaxed into it, allowing her back to sink into to the fabric.  For a brief moment, she was back in a sailboat with Lexa, during the sixth month of her first pregnancy, leaning against her wife and feeling the vibrations of the rigging groaning against the masts, booms, and sails on their way out to visit the Floukru.  

That had been a great trip: the most relaxed they’d been, both before and after.  The morning sickness melding with the seasickness was the only bad part, and she got over that fairly quickly.  On Floukru’s island, there were no assassins to dodge or rebellions to put down. There was nobody to rule: only Luna and her legendary hospitality.  She would have to take Abby there sometime, to see the best of what her people could be. With great reluctance, she returned to her tale.

“I was supposed to relinquish my crown, either giving it back to Nia’s son Roan, or nephew Leofric, and taking my place as High Ambassador in the capitol.  However, they were both murdered. So, the crown still sits on my head.”

Before Clarke could continue, she heard a muffled scuffle coming from the hallway, and saw Abby spring out of her chair.  Without a second thought, Clarke was standing with her bone-handled scramseax in her hand, stepping between her mother and whatever might come through that door.  She leaned back on her left foot, into a defensive stance, her left knee complaining from far too much use.  _ I’ll have to ask Galen to take a look at it, _ she thought to herself.

Titus and Murphy burst through the door, hauling a woman with a burlap sack over her head into the room by her armpits.  She was wearing the garb that matched the assassins, down to the puffy trousers and sandals. Fury stormed Clarke’s heart and head and she tightened her grip on her weapon.  The two of them threw the woman to the ground and Murphy ripped off the sack off of her head.

Suddenly,  a raging squall crashed over Clarke’s face, her body stiffening, back straightening, storm fixed across her face, and she was no longer Clarke Griffin, but the mighty Wanheda, Azplana of Azgeda and wife of Heda.  Murphy took half a step back, never having truly adjusted to the person she had to be when she was ruling. Titus merely watched, face expressionless.

The young woman herself was calm, and mostly unremarkable.  She had high cheekbones and a sharp chin. Her skin was extremely pale, with an overwhelming number of freckles.  There was no fear in her light gray eyes, only disdain. She looked directly into Clarke’s pupil with an unwavering gaze.

_ "Found her trying to leave the city,” _ Murphy started.  Titus moved behind the woman to hold her in place to prevent her from formulating an inventive escape plan.  " _ Figured we should have a little chat to see what this is all about.” _

Clarke nodded.   _ “And?” _

_ “Oh, no, we decided to wait for you to be present.  I imagined you’d want to be one of the first people to hear what she has to say.” _

_ “This is true.” _

Stepping forward, Clarke harshly pinched the woman’s nose between her fingers.  The woman’s jaw dropped open as she gasped for breath. This one still had a tongue.  “So, you can talk. How about you get to work on that.”

The young woman sneered and aimed a viscous wad of spit at the toes of Clarke’s boot.  It fell short by a few inches, but the message was received. Using the tip of her dagger, Clarke pulled the assassin’s chin up, leaning so that their noses were touching.  “Original... Do you think you’re the first person to show your disdain by trying to ornament my shoe? I could fill a cistern with the spit of my enemies that decorates my toes.

“Let’s be brief.  Who are you?”

“I am the harbinger of your fall, Azplana,” the assassin chuckled haughtily, a familiar nasty glint in her eye.

Once again, reality lurched.  Clarke kneels on the floor in the imperial apartments.  The room reeks of blood, as it soaks the finely woven, white striped carpets.  There are dead assassins everywhere, all killed before they could question them about their clan affiliation or motives.  Her father-in-law, Reese and mother-in-law Madson, lie lifeless, Reese’s thick neck slashed so brutally that it nearly sheared his head completely off.  Mica’s fine dark hair tickles her nose as Clarke cradles her goufa in the seconds following Mica’s last breath. Clarke is making a high-pitched keening noise, rocking forward and back, staring at the small outline of blood on the floor.  And then she feels nothing, and is nowhere. When she came to, the assassin was bruised and bleeding at her feet, coughing as she spat out a tooth.

Murphy’s eyes were wide, nostrils flared, and breaths shallow, his hands trembling at his sides.  Titus’s eyes have narrowed, but his expression was otherwise flat. The assassin rolled back to her knees, remaining defiant.  There was something to be respected in that. Clarke looked back to Murphy; she weighed her options and reached a decision. Never again.  “Take her to the dungeons. We must know what she knows. Ask. Nicely, at first, but you have my permission to tap your creativity.”

“A wise move, Wanheda,” Titus assented.  He had been an adversary, at first, given the kinds of reforms Clarke represented.  However, they’d reached a begrudging respect and shaky truce for Lexa’s sake over the years.  His approval would be useful.

Murphy looked less certain, stepping forward so that  his face  was in Clarke’s line of sight.  “Wanheda, I mean no disrespect, but is going to that extreme really necessary?”

“We have to at least try.  It is our duty to the coalition to vigorously defend the safety of our people,” Clarke’s voice was absolutely frigid.  “We must protect our pack.”

Murphy nodded, making note of Clarke’s detachment, clearly realizing that, if history was any indication, arguing at this point would be fruitless.  He threw the sack back over the woman’s head and hauled her to her feet. Titus stepped in and each took one arm to support the woman as she hobbled out of the room.

Clarke’s hands were balled into fists, knuckles white, blood spattered over the skin.    She turned to see that Abby’s face was frozen in horrified shock. A complicated wave of emotions washed over Clarke, which included guilt, insecurity, anxiety, rejection, and indignation.  She was doing better at naming her emotions these days, after a rough patch in their marriage that peaked last summer. Clarke’s heart twisted, remorse burning deep. That regret folded into the fresh waves of emotions crashing into her body from her mother’s pointed glare.

Abby’s eyes begged,  _ How could you? _

_ It was necessary _ , Clarke thought.    _ We do what we must for our people.  It’s who we both are. _

Instead, Clarke’s shoulders drooped and her gaze sank to Abby’s feet.  Angry at her body’s betrayal, Clarke puffed up, grinding her heels into the ground,  adopting a shortened defensive stance. She jutted forth her chin defiantly, daring her mother to challenge Wanheda.

Abby paced the width of the room, wheeling sharply on her heels when getting too close to the cedar baseboard at the bottom of chipped plaster.  Her jaw muscles rippled. Pausing every so often, she opened her mouth to say something, before bringing herself short and resuming her trek from wall to wall.  Finally, she came to an abrupt halt, crossing her arms in front of her, and stepping decisively into Clarke’s interpersonal threshold.

“What was that?  We torture people now to get what we want?”

“Without question.”  Clarke’s words were clipped.  She calmly walked over to a simple earthenware basin on the nightstand next to Raven’s bedside.  She filled the bottom with water from the ornate bronze ewer sitting next to it. Setting it down, her bloody hands plunged  below the surface, vigorously scouring the stranger’s gore off of her hands. She turned her body back to Abby while drying herself off with a roughspun linen towel.    “If taking some liberties with my ethical standards keeps the empire whole and my family safe, my own humanity is a small price to pay.”

“Damn it, Clarke, this is not who you are!”

“I am precisely who my people require me to be, and right now, we need answers more than we need some misplaced sense of virtue.”

Abby said nothing.  Her eyes shimmered, lids blinking rapidly.  Arms falling limply to her side, her chin drifted towards her chest, shoulders drooping.  Abruptly, her chin shot forward, and nostrils flared. She turned rigidly towards the door, marching out, and stopping in the frame so that Clarke would be able to read her lips, “I have patients,” before disappearing around the corner.

“Obviously, you don’t!” Clarke called out to her retreating back, the rebellious teenager bubbling up inside.  Abby did not come back.

She sagged back into her chair and wedged her hands between her knees, plump tears rolling down her face.  Clarke unwrapped the chain from her wrists, taking into her fingers one of the jagged bone beads strung together, evenly spaced, with steel links.  She mumbled a Trigeda prayer to Cyth, the god of Hearth and Home, pinching the sharp beads so tightly that they left imprints in the callused pads of her fingers.   _ Mae ai bludd ste klir en hul, beja lukafta em Nontu gon houmfaya. _

_ [May my family remain safe and whole, please protect them Father of the homefire _ .]

The gentle caress of rough fingertips on her cheeks pulled her out of her prayers.  Lexa was standing in front of her, her body burning orange in the setting sun, not the emperor of thirteen nations, but a woman who loved Clarke to a treasonous degree.  There was no pity in her eyes, nor recrimination, just the understanding that sometimes decisions must be made for the good of the empire, regardless of how disgusting they make one feel.  

Clarke’s wife collected her love in her arms and held her while Clarke emptied her eyes and heavy heart.  She wrapped powerful arms around Clarke’s thin frame. Placing gentle kisses on her hairline and temple, as well as where her cheek met her ear, Lexa crouched in front of Clarke, holding both their weights,  

Allowing herself to feel shattered for just a moment, Clarke realized there would be no more pretending that her long-dead mother would be proud of the peace she had carved out.  Instead, the woman who loved and nurtured her resented the person the Ice Nation needed her to become: someone her people could pour their hopes and dreams into, but definitely not what Abby raised her to be.  She could feel the jaws of the trap closing in on her, and she had no idea how to stop them or get out of their way.

To further complicate matters, this mysterious adversary had targeted her family, nearly killing both Raven and Barth, in the process.   They had invaded sanctity of her home, ambushed her children. A strangled inner voice cried out,  _ They came after my children!   _

Anya had been forced to kill.  Six years old. If there was one thing Clarke desperately wanted more than anything else, it was that her children would never be faced with the decisions that had demolished her personal principles and ravaged her humanity.  Here they were, on the precipice of societal disaster, yet again, this time with her baby girl plunged into adulthood, slated to receive her first kill mark in a private ceremony this evening before they turned their attention to confront this new threat.  She could feel the past sucking at her heart, and the present tearing at her soul.

Running the fabric of Lexa’s soft shirt between her fingers, she whispered, “Raven’s black combat boots, Barth’s dagger in its sheath on his belt, The red canvas of the chair my mother was sitting in, the stiff canvas of my chair, my own stuffy nose, the soft woolen socks in my boots, my wife’s breath on my neck, the smell of my wife’s shampoo, the blood on my hands, and the taste of my own toothpaste,” a thing she’d picked up from a book stashed away in Site R’s extensive library.  She could feel herself calming down.

Clarke hadn’t had this many episodes in ages.  Her mother’s re-emergence with a brand new sister, born of the man who had floated her father, coupled with the persistent series of attacks on her family had her feeling completely unmoored.  However, if they were going to winter this blizzard, she needed to get herself together.

Clarke returned her attention to Lexa.   _ “Where did you go?  You went out for water and never came back.” _

_ “I received an update from Murphy’s second,” _ Lexa’s face was grim.   _ “It was discovered that they had set fire to the morgue and killed Grieg.  More specifically, they burned the corpses of their own dead. If Murphy’s second hadn’t returned to retrieve forgotten notes, we would most likely have lost the whole hospital.  Murphy’s team also discovered, when searching the Engineering floor, that the samples we had sent over were gone. It would seem that they were trying to destroy evidence, and Raven and York got in the way.” _

_ “This is so odd.” _ Clarke stared at Raven’s chest drain.   _ “I can’t imagine who could be behind this.  None of the other clans use glowing runes, that I’m aware of, or that very specific costuming.  This is far too organized for any of the bandits on the fringes. I’m completely at a loss.” _

_ “We’ll figure this out.  We always do. Hopefully, Raven and York wake up soon, and they can fill in any missing gaps.” _

Clarke leaned into Lexa’s chest, watching Raven’s eyes flutter as she dreamed.  Her inner pragmatist rationalized that Raven was a vital component of this particular mystery, and their people needed her to return to them as soon as possible.  It felt impossible to admit to herself that she didn’t much care if Raven had anything useful to say, she just needed her beloved friend to live. She was exhausted with leading, she was tired of losing.  They needed to get through this new imperial crisis, and then she and Lexa would be having a long talk about their political future.


End file.
